Agreement to Politically Resolve Syria Crisis

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran, Russia and Turkey have started the process of finding a political solution to the Syria crisis.

Zarif made the announcement after a trilateral Iran-Russia-Turkey meeting on the conflict in Syria in Moscow on Tuesday, in a push for settling the biggest calamity of the 21st century, which has left around 400,000 dead.

At a joint press conference with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts, Zarif and Mevlut Cavusoglu respectively, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the three sides agreed there is no military solution to the Syrian issue, Sputnik reported.

Parties to the Moscow talks adopted a joint statement on coordinated actions aimed at reviving the political process in war-torn Arab country.

Iranian advisors and Russian military are backing the Syrian Army in its fight against militants and terrorists trying to bring down the Syrian government, while Turkey supports the opposite side.

The Syrian government has almost liberated Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, after weeks of blistering attacks against militants who had occupied the eastern part of the city since 2012.

Only a small pocket of the city is under militant control and Turkey and Russia have reached a deal to evacuate them to other militant-held areas in Syria.

Another meeting was held in the afternoon, with the participation of defense ministers from Iran, Russia and Turkey, Hossein Dehqan, Sergei Shoygu and Fikri Isik, respectively.

Earlier in the day, Zarif and Dehqan held separate meetings with their Russian counterparts.

The meeting was held under the shadow of a terror attack in Ankara a day earlier, in which Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was killed.

Cavusoglu said on Tuesday the incident would not damage Russian-Turkish ties, although it aimed to do just that.

On the eve of the Moscow meetings, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russia's Vladimir Putin discussed over phone political steps to solve the Syrian crisis, the anti-terror push in the Arab country and the prevailing humanitarian conditions.

Syrian opposition groups and representatives of the Syrian government have agreed to hold peace talks in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, in the near future.