Beirut, ASHARQ AL-AWSAT, DEC. 28, 2016 – Optimism diminished over the success of a Russian-Iranian conference over the Syrian peace process that is scheduled for mid-January in Astana.
Well-informed Turkish sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the Iranian leadership was imposing vetoes on its possible representatives to the conference.
Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said that Iran would never coordinate with the United States on the Syrian issue because the U.S.-led coalition “has no real intentions” to fight against ISIS terrorists either in Iraq or in Syria.
“We have never coordinated our actions with the Americans. We will never cooperate with them [on Syria],” Dehghan said in an interview with RT television.
According to the minister, the U.S.-led coalition “has no real intentions” to fight against ISIS terrorists either in Iraq or in Syria.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov said that during the recent meeting in Moscow with his counterparts from Iran and Turkey, “we approved a joint declaration in which we confirmed our readiness to guarantee a future agreement between the Syrian government and the opposition.”
In an interview with Interfax news agency, Lavrov said: “Negotiations about that issue are going on”.
According to Interfax, Lavrov was referring to talks between the opposition and the Syrian government.
The High Negotiations Committee, a body grouping armed and political opponents of President Bashar al-Assad said it had no knowledge of the consultations.
“We in the High Negotiations Committee certainly have no connection to this matter,” George Sabra, a member of the HNC, told Reuters.
