Deputy FM Meets Lebanese Officials

Visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari held separate talks with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and the head of Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, on issues of mutual interest.

In the meeting with Bassil in Beirut late Monday, the deputy foreign minister pointed to the protracted crisis in Syria and explained Iran’s efforts to help end the war in the Arab country, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Ansari emphasized that the resolution of the Syrian crisis requires assistance from Lebanon and other regional countries. Bassil expressed gratitude to the Islamic Republic for its strong support for the fight against terrorism and said the establishment of a ceasefire and the de-escalation zones in Syria will help Lebanon in its anti-terrorism campaign. Syria’s warring sides have so far attended five rounds of peace talks brokered by Iran, Russia and Turkey in the Kazakh capital of Astana. The fourth round of those talks in May produced a memorandum of understanding on de-escalation zones in Syria, sharply reducing fighting in the country. In a separate meeting on the same day, Ansari and Jumblatt conferred on a range of topics, including the Palestinian issue and other developments in the Middle East.