Mr. Blinken started his meeting with Mr. Fidan at 9:40 a.m. (6:40 GMT) on Friday, according to a U.S. official.
He arrived in the Turkish capital on Thursday evening and held talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a lounge at Ankara's airport.
"Turkey will never show weakness in the fight against ISIS," President Erdogan told Mr. Blinken during their late-night meeting.
"As the only NATO country to have engaged in direct combat against Daesh, Turkey will thwart efforts by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) and its affiliates to exploit the situation on the ground, and will never allow weakness in the fight against ISIS," Erdogan said, according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
"Turkey will take preventive measures primarily for its own national security against all terrorist organizations (...) operating in Syria and posing a threat to Turkey," he added.
A Crisis Tour
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Ankara late Thursday and immediately met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the airport, a U.S. official announced.
He arrived at 8:14 p.m. (5:14 GMT) and met directly with Erdogan in the VIP lounge of Ankara’s Esenboga Airport, the official noted, as Blinken embarked on the second leg of a regional tour following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Blinken had earlier departed from the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba, where he began his regional tour on Thursday to discuss the post-Assad transition.
The former Syrian president was ousted from power on Sunday by a coalition of Islamist rebels, spearheaded by the group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former branch of Al-Qaeda. A transitional prime minister, Mohammad al-Bachir, was subsequently appointed, pledging to establish a "state of law."
During discussions with Blinken, Turkey is expected to emphasize its security concerns following the upheaval in Syria.
Before leaving Aqaba, Blinken stated that the role of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the U.S., was "essential" in preventing a resurgence of jihadists in the country.
"As we seek this transition toward an interim government, toward a better path for Syria, we must also ensure that ISIS does not reemerge. And the SDF is essential to making sure that doesn’t happen," he said.
The SDF controls vast areas in northern Syria, where Syrian Kurds have established an autonomous administration.
However, while allied with Western powers in the fight against ISIS, the SDF is viewed by Turkey as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara classifies as a terrorist organization.
With AFP
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