Chairman of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri attended a meeting in Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday with Valery Vasilyevich and Hulusi Akar, his Russian and Turkish counterparts, respectively. The meeting was part of a trilateral mechanism initiated by Tehran, Moscow and Ankara to find a political settlement to about seven years of conflict in Syria by dislodging militant groups from Syria, particularly the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group. It followed the ministerial talks between the three countries in the Turkish resort city of Antalya on Sunday. Baqeri separately held talks with Vasilyevich earlier in the day, ISNA reported. The discussions come in the lead-up to a tripartite summit on the Syria crisis in the Black Sea resort of Sochi scheduled for Wednesday, which Iranian, Russian and Turkish presidents, Hassan Rouhani, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan respectively, are expected to attend.
