LONDON: Turkish and Syrian authorities on Thursday denied a report that government officials from Syria met in secret in Turkiye last month with representatives of the Lebanese militant and political group Hezbollah, in an attempt to ease tensions between the longtime adversaries.

The Turkish Directorate of Communications said the suggestion that such a meeting took place, under the auspices of Turkiye’s National Intelligence Organization, was “entirely unfounded,” the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The directorate’s Center for Combating Disinformation said claims about the purported date, location, participants and substance of the meeting “do not reflect any reality and are entirely fabricated and speculative.”

The Syrian government also rejected the report. The state-run Alikhbariah television channel quoted the Foreign Media Directorate at Syria’s Information Ministry as saying: “These claims are false and no such meeting took place.”

Reuters, citing six informed sources, reported earlier in the day that Syrian officials and representatives of the Iran-backed Lebanese group met in Turkiye at least one time in September in an effort to de-escalate tensions.

The sources included two Syrian officials, a US official and a senior Lebanese security source close to Hezbollah, Reuters said. The report described the meeting as the first direct talks between the two sides.

Hezbollah and the new authorities in Syria have been adversaries for years. The Lebanese group sent fighters to Syria during the country’s civil war to support the government of President Bashar Assad, whose regime fell in the face of an opposition offensive in December 2024, after almost 14 years of conflict.