Turkish media reported that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has softened its opposition toward a Russia-US brokered international conference on Syria following meeting with President Barack Obama.

Turkish media reported that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has softened its opposition toward a Russia-US brokered international conference on Syria following meeting with President Barack Obama.

"Erdogan has appeared to soften his stance about Geneva after meeting with President Obama," commentator Asli Aydintasbas wrote in the liberal Milliyet newspaper.

Ankara agreed to an international gathering "in return for some guarantees" from Washington including an assurance that the process would not be "open-ended" and the parties would not allow months-long delaying tactics in the name of "diplomacy," according to the columnist.

Obama and Erdogan met in Washington Thursday amid a flurry of shuttle discussion between world and regional powers ahead of the planned conference, which is known in Ankara as "Geneva II" -- a follow-up to a 2012 accord among world powers in Geneva aimed at solving the Syrian conflict.

Ankara has so far opposed such an international gathering, arguing that it “would buy Syrian President Bashar al-Assad time.”  

Erdogan, who spoke to Turkish reporters in Washington Friday, said he would visit Russia for further talks on a solution to the Syrian crisis.
"Our policy is not to buy time to Assad but to stop the deaths," the Turkish leader was quoted as saying by the Vatan newspaper.