The plane touched down at 8:14 pm (1714 GMT), an AFP correspondent travelling with him said. Blinken headed straight into talks with Erdogan "in the VIP lounge" at Ankara's Esenboga airport, the US official said.

Washington's top diplomat flew in from the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba where he kicked off a regional tour on Thursday to discuss fallout from the ouster of Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey was expected to put heavy emphasis on its security concerns following the upheaval in Syria, where it has been fighting a Kurdish-led force that Washington backs as a key player in the fight against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.

Before leaving Aqaba, Blinken said the role of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was "critical" to preventing a resurgence of IS jihadists in the country.