Iran, Moscow and Turkey are due to meet later this month to discuss how to best cooperate to help end the six-year-old war in Syria, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.
“After constant, intense efforts by [Foreign Minister] Mohammad Javad Zarif over the past few days and his repeated phone calls to his Russian and Turkish counterparts, Dec. 27 was set as the date for a ministerial meeting among Iran, Moscow and Turkey,” Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by ISNA on Friday.
President Hassan Rouhani is also expected to visit Russia in January 2017, a source familiar with preparations for the visit told Russia’s TASS news agency.
In a snub to Washington, Putin said on Friday he and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are working to organize a new series of Syrian peace talks without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations.
Putin made clear that the peace talks, if they happened, would be in addition to intermittent UN-brokered negotiations in Geneva, Reuters reported.
