Following the global talks on the future of Syria in Vienna on Friday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the talks should entail a decision on a date and means for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from the power, as well as the withdrawal of foreign forces, “especially Iran”, from Syria.
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Participants called for a nationwide ceasefire and the renewal of stalled UN-brokered talks between the government and the opposition.
According to a report released by Fars News Agency on October 29, Along with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Deputy Foreign Ministers Abbas Araqchi, Majid Takht Ravanchi and Hossein Amir Abdollahian will also attend the one-day event. Iran backs Assad in the war while Saudi Arabia supports rebels seeking to oust him.
A senior Iranian foreign official has criticised what it called Saudi Arabia’s “unconstructive” role in recent global talks on Syria crisis, threatening to walk out of the talks should the next meeting be “unproductive”, the media reported. “We said that Iran has increased its presence in Syria in recent weeks”. It was the first time Tehran and Riyadh were at the same table to tackle a war that has evolved into a wider proxy struggle for regional dominance between Russian Federation and Iran on Assad’s side and Turkey, U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states and Western powers who support rebels to various degrees.
Meanwhile, the fighting has continued inside Syria, with regime helicopters allegedly dropping barrel bombs across a number of suburbs in the southern city of Deraa.
Syrian government forces have also been bombarding opposition territory in Douma near Damascus – a regular target for air strikes.
“In the last five years there have been meetings with various countries about the situation in Syria but because Iran was not present in those meetings no solution was ever found”, he said.
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“In the past 24 hours, 131 sorties have been carried out from Hmeymim airbase, hitting 237 terrorist targets in the provinces of Hama, Latakia, Homs, Damascus, Aleppo and Raqqa”, Igor Lonashenkov, the Russian defence ministry spokesperson, said.
