Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Tuesday poured cold water on Russian calls to join forces with the Syrian authorities against Islamic State jihadists, insisting it would never work with President Bashar al-Assad.
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The Russian invitation, Lavrov said, has received wide attention in the global arena, noting that the Syrian government is willing to participate in the worldwide efforts to fight ISIS. Later this week, Lavrov is also set to confer with the opposition Syrian National Coalition, which until now has refused to visit Russian Federation.
Since the beginning of July, the Syrian military of President Bashar al-Assad has dropped over 2,000 so-called “barrel bombs” throughout the country, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said Thursday, leaving neighborhoods in tatters and hundreds of civilians dead.
While these initiatives look compelling on the surface, none will lead to a solution unless Washington, Tehran, and Moscow coordinate a joint effort to end the war in Syria, which is now made more likely in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal.
The two ministers last met in Qatar on August 3 when Lavrov, Jubeir and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a three-way meeting, with Syria topping the agenda.
Saudi Arabia is prepared to “do anything to stop the bloodshed in Syria”, saying it will give up its support for the opposition in return for an Iranian withdrawal, according to media reports. “There is no place for Assad in the future of Syria”.
Lavrov strongly warned trying to unseat Assad, which is the longtime goal of Syrian rebels along with the Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Saudi Arabia’s position on the Syrian crisis has not changed, Jubeir told reporters after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
It said they would talk about Russia’s proposition to make an “expansive overall coalition to battle ISIL shooters inside Syria”. The talks are part of a new Moscow attempt to help mediate the Syrian conflict.
The source said that the Saudi regime’s course of providing all sorts of support to terrorist group in Syria, which is due to the organic nature of the relations connecting them, constitutes a serious threat to regional and worldwide security, and it’s imperative to put a stop to the destructive behavior of the Saudi regime.
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Saudi Arabia is allied with the United States in the multinational air campaign directed at Islamic State militants who have seized vast areas of Syria and Iraq in the midst of sectarian fighting that afflicts both countries.
