Iran, Russia talk on Syria, Yemen settlement

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov have held a meeting on Tuesday as part of their periodic meetings in Moscow.

News ID: 65432

Date: 02 August 2017 - 11:55

Jaberi Ansari said addressing the Syrian crisis during the Astana talks, the three countries discussed a number of issues, including security and efficient fight against terrorism, the need for prompt political settlement of the Syrian crisis and humanitarian aid to refugees as well as their return to homes.

"Within the framework of Astana format we, I mean, Iran, Russia and Turkey, are surely making efforts in order to find the best solution for the issues mentioned before," he noted.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, for his part, said Tuesday that Moscow would like to see the support of the UN special envoy for Syria de Mistura team to establish a dialogue between warring parties in Syria.

"Russia would like to enlist the support of the United Nations in establishing direct dialogue between Syrian delegations and the establishment of one delegation from the opposition,” Bogdanov said Tuesday.

"We believe that of course it would be very important, and in this case we would like to enlist the support of the [UN special envoy for Syria] de Mistura team, to establish direct dialogue between the Syrian parties. It would also naturally be very important to establish one delegation of the Syrian opposition on the basis of representatives of the Moscow, Cairo and Riyadh platforms," he added.

On Tuesday, Jaberi Ansari headed to Moscow to meet with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Russia's Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev to discuss the situation in Syria. Expert talks on the results of the fifth round of Astana talks on the Syrian settlement will take place in Tehran on Tuesday and Wednesday. Three Syrian ceasefire guarantor states, Russia, Turkey and Iran, are set to open a meeting of joint working group to continue delineation of de-escalation zones in Syria on Tuesday.

So far, five rounds of Syria settlement talks have taken place in Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana since January. Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States, the United Nations, Syrian government representatives and the Syrian opposition participate in the negotiation process. In May, the participants of the talks in Astana agreed on establishing four safe zones in Syria as part of the de-escalation process.

The sixth round of talks is scheduled for the end of August, however, media reported earlier in the day that it could take place in the middle of the month. The Kazakh Foreign Ministry said that it could not confirm the change of date.