Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet the UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura in Moscow on Wednesday as diplomats try to keep up a push aimed at ending the bloody war.
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“Next week, we will invite opposition representatives to a consultation in Moscow”, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday it was inappropriate to link Russia’s military strategy in Syria with the results of an investigation into an airplane crash in Egypt over the weekend in which over 200 people died.
Describing Friday’s meeting as “constructive”, Kerry said the talks had generated a few ideas which had “the possibility of changing the dynamics”.
However, she added in an interview with the Radio Eco in Moscow, “regime change could become a disaster, and not only at a local or regional level”.
“There is no issue with the government, they said so a long time ago”, he said.
A semi-official news agency in Iran is reporting that a Revolutionary Guard colonel has been killed in Syria’s civil war, the latest Iranian casualty as it supports embattled President Bashar Assad.
“In this way, we can then create the conditions for the start and, I hope the successful reaching of a conclusion, of the political process to find a settlement”.
Saudi Arabia, which is financing a few of the militants fighting against Assad, has baulked at Russia’s intervention. Hezbollah and Iran are believed to have troops and officers on the ground, while a Western-led coalition and Russian Federation are carrying out air strikes.
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Moscow has insisted it is targeting fighters from Islamist groups, such as Islamic State, but critics have said raids have hit civilians and moderate groups, such as the Free Syrian Army. The number of civilian victims continues to rise.
