Russia, Iran and Turkey work towards new Syria peace meeting

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on Sunday with NTV that his country, Turkey and Iran are working on a new meeting between the Syrian government and the opposition.

There will be “new efforts” on settlement of the situation in Syria, Lavrov said.

“Recently, the second meeting in Astana, which did not feature the Syrian sides, but only Russia, Turkey and Iran, was devoted to additional discussions of details for the mechanism to monitor observation of the ceasefire agreement,” he said.

“Those details are approved generally, and soon they will gain force and will be implemented practically,” he continued.

“Parallel to that, we are working on another contact between the government and the armed oppositionist, and we continue involving additional armed groups to have them join the process,” the minister said, adding Jordan had assisted in “joining to the process of the armed groups, which are in the so-called Southern Front, and on which Jordan has influence, as they are working right across the border with Syria.”

“I want it to be absolutely clear: we have said at all levels that we are not attempting to replace the UN efforts (though our initiative to a big extent came from the fact it was impossible to tolerate any longer the lack of action) and we realize there should be more parties to the talks, both representing the “outer players”, than the initiators, working in Astana,” he said. “Parallel to the Astana process, which we want to keep as a “driver”, we are getting ready to negotiations under the auspices of the UN, when they happen.”