Syria in rubble
© Omar Sanadiki/Reuters
Russia has already invited the United States to take part in the upcoming talks on Syria, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press.

"As I said yesterday, we have already invited [the US]," Lavrov told journalists in Moscow on Thursday. US officials have been invited to the international meeting on the Syrian settlement which will be held in Kazakh capital Astana on Monday, January 23.

"We think it would be the right thing to invite the representatives of the UN and the new US administration to the meeting," Lavrov had said on Wednesday, at a press conference summing up the results of Russian foreign policy in 2016.

Thursday's announcement comes despite recent statements by Iran, which strongly objects to US participation at the Syria talks. "We are opposed to a US presence [in Astana]. We have not invited them [US], and we are against their presence," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was earlier quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.


Comment: Lavrov thinks it's right to invite US to Syria talks in Astana, Iran disagrees


Russia, however, hopes that the incoming Trump administration will accept the invitation.

"We're counting on the new [US] administration accepting this invitation and being represented by experts on any level they consider possible. It will be the first official contact during which we could begin discussing stepping up the efficiency of fighting terrorism in Syria," Lavrov said on Wednesday.