© AFP 2016/ Natalia KOLESNIKOVARussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (2L), his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu (2R) and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) attend a meeting in Moscow on December 20, 2016.
On Tuesday, the foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow to discuss the situation in Syria, including in Aleppo. They agreed in a joint statement on the revival of the political process to end the conflict in the country. The document stressed the importance of respecting Syria's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
"First of all, this is an important development after so many years of a civil war. Now we can see a gleam of hope for the resolution of the Syrian crisis and civil war. It is quite important that the party meeting has a result about working together for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria and fight against terrorism... This is changing the format... And we have a hope for the territorial integrity, to the reservation of territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria," Yilmaz said.
According to Yilmaz, the agreement of Russian, Turkish and Iranian ministers that regime change in Syria is not a condition for the crisis settlement is a good development, which means that all parties to the conflict in Syria could come together in order to work out a way for talks and possible peace deal.
Moscow wants Saudi Arabia to join Russia-Turkey-Iran efforts for Syria peace
Moscow says that Saudi Arabia should join efforts to find peace in Syria undertaken by Russia, Iran and Turkey, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN envoy, said.
It is "very important" that the statement by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara "contained an invitation to other countries that have influence 'on the ground' to join such efforts," he said. "It seems to me it would be very important for Saudi Arabia to take a similar stance and work in the same direction," the envoy told Rossiya 24 channel.
The Russia-US talks on resolving the Syrian crisis have stalled, but Churkin says that the situation may change when Donald Trump replaces Barack Obama in the White House.
"I'm going to share my personal interpretation of the things I've heard recently," he said.
According to Churkin's information, the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said he planned to convene a new round of talks about Syria on February 8, 2017.
"I'm sure he (de Mistura) did it only after he had found an opportunity to contact the people on Donald Trump's team and to coordinate the date with them," the Russian UN ambassador said. "That's good enough a sign because it could be indicative of the ability of the Trump Administration to steer the situation towards a rapid enough unfolding of the political process (in Syria)," Churkin said, again stressing that it was just his "personal interpretation of events."
He said that Russia is ready to cooperate with Nikki Haley, who Trump plans to propose for the next US envoy at the United Nations.
"She's a quite young governor of South Carolina, lacking international experience, but I heard some good comments about her," the Russian envoy said.
However, he stressed that he doesn't know Haley in person, which makes it hard to predict how the US delegation will act under her in the UN and with the Security Council.
"Anyway, I think it's early to relax and expect that we're going to have some kind of nirvana in our work at the UN. It's going to be a bit more complicated in real life," Churkin said.
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