The foreign ministers of Russia, Syria, Iran and Turkey can have a meeting without any preconditions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference on Friday following his visit to Uzbekistan.
"I think it is important here to be guided by the understandings reached between our leaders. The leaders' understanding was that it is in our common interests to promote the format of these four-party meetings, including at the level of foreign ministers," he said. - "We are now negotiating the date, place and parameters of the discussion. Our position is very simple; there are hardly any preconditions."
Lavrov stressed that all participants in the group repeatedly affirmed respect for Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity, advocated a full-fledged settlement taking into account the interests of the entire Syrian people, and condemned actions that encourage separatism.
"These are sufficient criteria, in my opinion, on the basis of which we should now start a substantive conversation, the main goal of which is reconciliation between the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Turkey. This would be a very important shift in the situation in the region, which we are ready to promote in every possible way and which we are ready to encourage in every possible way. In my opinion, the fact that none of this quartet disputes the principles of territorial integrity creates good conditions for raising this dialogue from the expert level to the level of foreign ministers, especially since the defense ministers and representatives of special services have already met," summed up the Russian foreign minister.
Earlier, Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali told TASS that Moscow had already proposed a specific date for a meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, Syria and Turkey, which is currently under consideration. The diplomat confirmed that the meeting could take place soon.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: anjči/Creative Commons 2.0
Based on materials from TASS