Russia, Turkey and Iran have agreed to hold talks on Syria
The foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran, Sergey Lavrov, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Mohammad Javad Zarif respectively, discussed the situation in Syria against the backdrop of eastern Aleppo being occupied by government troops and the evacuation of the civilian population out of the city.
The Ministers previously agreed to hold a meeting to discuss the Syrian conflict, as evidenced by a press release issued by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on December 17.
The document does not specify the exact date but the Turkish ambassador in Moscow said that the Foreign Ministers will meet in the Russian capital on December 27. This information was also confirmed by the Iranian Foreign Affairs department.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed to offer the conflicting parties in Syria a new round of negotiations in Astana. The Russian leader said that if the parties to the conflict agree, "we will turn to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev asking to support this process." Putin noted that "wherever the conflicting parties meet, it would be the right thing to do it and to seek a political settlement."