http://www.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-lavrov-idUSL5N1EM14I
Industrials | Tue Dec 27, 2016 | 3:21pm
IST
Russia
says Syrian government and opposition are holding talks - Ifax
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
speaks during a news conference after the talks with his Turkish counterpart
Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow,
Russia, December 20, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
By Andrew Osborn and Tom Perry |
MOSCOW/BEIRUT
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was
quoted on Tuesday as saying that the Syrian government was consulting with the
opposition ahead of possible peace talks, but a Saudi-backed opposition group
said it knew nothing of the negotiations.
Lavrov did not say where the consultations
were taking place or which opposition groups were taking part.
Russia, Iran and Turkey said last week
they were ready to help broker a peace deal after holding talks in Moscow where
they adopted a declaration setting out the principles any agreement should
adhere to.
Arrangements for the talks, which would
not include the United States and be distinct from separate intermittent
U.N.-brokered negotiations, remain hazy, but Moscow has said they would take
place in Kazakhstan, a close ally.
"During the recent meeting in Moscow
with my colleagues 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," Lavrov told the Interfax news
agency in an interview.
"Negotiations about that are going
on," he said. Interfax said he 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.
The HNC includes armed groups fighting
Assad under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. It took part in a failed bid to
launch peace talks earlier this year. The HNC was established in Saudi Arabia
with Riyadh's backing in December 2015.
NO DATE FIXED FOR TALKS
Russia's foreign ministry later said
Lavrov had discussed a peace plan for Syria with U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry in a telephone call on Tuesday, without elaborating.
Lavrov also told Kerry that a U.S.
decision to ease some restrictions on arming Syrian rebels could lead to more
casualties, it said. Earlier Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria
Zakharova said the easing of the restrictions could directly threaten Russian
forces in Syria.
President Vladimir Putin has said that
Russia, Iran and Turkey and Assad have agreed that Astana, the Kazakh capital,
should be the venue for new Syrian peace talks.
Russian officials say preparations for the
talks are under way, but that invitations to participants have not been sent
out and the exact timing has yet to be decided.
The officials, who have spoken of
mid-January as a possible date, say it is too early to talk about contacts with
the HNC.
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Lavrov spoke to Mevlut Cavusoglu, his
Turkish counterpart, by telephone on Tuesday. The two men agreed to push for a
nationwide ceasefire in Syria and to prepare for the Astana talks, the Russian
Foreign Ministry said.
The RIA news agency cited an unnamed
diplomatic source as saying that representatives from the Russian and Turkish
militaries were holding consultations with the Syrian opposition in Ankara
about how a possible nationwide ceasefire might work.
Separately on Tuesday Turkish President
Tayyip Erdogan said he had evidence that U.S.-led coalition forces in Syria
were giving support to "terrorist groups" including Islamic State and
the Kurdish militant groups YPG and PYD.
Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan
told Russia's state-backed RT TV station in an interview that Saudi Arabia
should not be allowed to take part in the Syrian peace process, the RIA news
agency reported.
It cited him as saying he thought Riyadh's
insistence that Assad should step down meant it had no place at any talks.
He also said that Assad should have the
right to stand in the next presidential election if he wanted to, RIA said.
(Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova
and Peter Hobson in Moscow; Editing by Alison Williams and Gareth Jones)
