Syria tripartite summit ‘step to peace’: Iran

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Monday labeled an upcoming trilateral summit between Iran, Russia and Turkey on Syria as a “step toward peace, security and stability” in the war-torn country.

The summit is scheduled to be held in Tehran on September 7 at the level of heads of state and foreign ministers as a follow-up to the Astana meeting held in Kazakhstan in mid-March.

“It is not logical to imagine that the prolonged crisis in Syria would be resolved with a meeting but we believe that the only possible path to this situation is the political solution,” ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in his weekly press conference.

The summit is also expected to address the situation in the northwestern Idlib province near Turkish border.

In April, the leaders of the three countries, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani, met in Ankara to discuss means of resolving the 7-year conflict in Syria.

The three mediator countries are acting as guarantors of a proposed cease-fire in Syria and have been trying to push peace talks since 2016 to resolve the Syrian conflict.

Ghasemi said Iranian military advisers will remain in Syria at the request of the Syrian government to continue what he described as fighting “terrorism”.

Iran and Shia group Hezbollah are strong allies of the Bashar al-Assad regime, whose forces have been fighting opposition groups in a deadly civil war since 2011.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced by the conflict.