A senior diplomat said delegations present in the upcoming round of international Vienna talks on Syria, to be held on Saturday, are supposed to prepare the ground for Syrian people to decide about the destiny of their country, not to decide on behalf of them.
In an interview with IRNA in Beirut on Wednesday before departing for Muscat, Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who will be representing Iran in the next Vienna talks, pointed to the underlying reason for the crisis in the war-torn country.
"What has brought Syria into the current situation is foreign intervention and total support for terrorists who receive facilities from some international and regional states," he said.
The deputy minister added that if those foreign countries stop, Syria would produce great outcomes in the fight against terrorists, while the process of solving the crisis through political efforts would also be accelerated.
"Iran believes that in the next Vienna talks, the focus should be on the say of the Syrian people and providing stability in Syria," Amir-Abdollahian said.
- Meeting With Omani FM
In the third stage of a regional tour, mainly aimed at consultations, to help find a solution for Syria's problem, Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Muscat on Thursday where he met Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf Bin Alawi.
The two sides discussed the outcome of the recent international Vienna talks on Syria and shared views about the prospect for the next round of talks to succeed at ending the five-year-long Syrian conflict.
Before flying to Oman, the deputy was in Beirut on Wednesday to have talks with prominent Lebanese figures, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.
Starting the tour, Amir-Abdollahian departed from Tehran for Moscow on Tuesday to hold consultations with Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian president’s special envoy for Middle East affairs.
Amir-Abdollahian said that in the talks with Bogdanov, they analyzed the positions of international players in the Vienna talks.
"We examined which countries want to play a positive, constructive role, and which countries want to achieve some goals they could not by backing the terrorist groups for five years," he said.
The Vienna II talks will bring together some 20 countries and international bodies to hammer out a roadmap for peace in Syria.
