Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated Saturday that Syria need to not be allowed to fall into the hands of a terrorist group as Islamist-led rebels bear down President Bashar al-Assads seat of power.Lavrov spoke after talks on Saturday with fellow Assad ally Iran and opposition fan Turkey in Qatar, aimed at preventing Syria from collapsing into turmoil after the lightning rebel advances of recent days.
Its inadmissible to enable the terrorist group to take control of area in violation of agreements, Lavrov stated, mentioning a 2015 UN Security Council Resolution which he stated highly repeated sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the Syrian Arab Republic .
Lavrov was referring to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group which has headed the attack and is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
HTS has sought to soften its image in the last few years but remains proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments.Lavrov and Iran's Abbas Araghchi met with Turkeys Hakan Fidan on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, an annual event for political dialogue.Araghchi said the 3 ministers agreed on the need to begin political discussion between the Syrian federal government and legitimate opposition groups .
The 3 countries have been partners since 2017 in the so-called Astana procedure seeking to end the civil war that has actually continued Syria since 2011.
Regardless of duplicated infractions, a 2020 ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey had actually largely frozen the dispute for a number of years but it was blown apart by the shock offensive the rebels released late last month.Moscow and Tehran have used military support to help Assads forces hold back the rebels.Ankara backs some of the rebel groups involved in the offensive and looks favourably at HTS success so far.However, the scale of the collapse of Assads forces has actually taken observers by surprise with conflicting reports about how close the rebels have concerned Assads seat of power in Damascus.On Saturday, a rebel commander said, Our forces have actually started the last phase of surrounding the capital , but the defence ministry stated there is no fact to news claiming the army has actually withdrawn from positions near Damascus.AFP has actually been unable to individually verify a few of the details offered by the federal government and the rebels, as its journalists in Syria can not reach the areas around Damascus where the rebels claim to have entered.Qatar which offered early support to the rebels after Assads government squashed a peaceful uprising in 2011 remains a strong critic of the Syrian leader but is calling for a negotiated end to the fighting.Speaking at the very same event in Doha, Qatars Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said Assad had actually stopped working to take these chances during a period of calm in the nations war both on the return of the refugees or on reconciling with his own people .
Ahead of the three-way talks, Araghchi said he had extremely frank and direct bilateral meetings with his Turkish equivalent and the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gotten in touch with Assad previously this week to reconcile with his people .
On Friday he stated he hoped the rebel advance would continue without event .
Ahead of the talks in Doha, Araghchi consulted with his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts in Baghdad on Friday, cautioning that the rebel advance postures a hazard to the entire Middle East.
This risk will not be limited to Syria and will affect Syrias neighbouring nations such as Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, he stated.