Moscow, SANA – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the inter-Syrian meeting in Moscow aims at preparing for a new round of talks, taking into account the mistakes that were made in the Geneva conference in 2014.
At an annual press conference held for reviewing the Russian diplomatic work in 2014, Lavrov highlighted two mistakes that were committed in Geneva conference, with the first being having only one part of the opposition invited while other groups were ignored, while the second was the fact that the Montreaux opening of the conference took the form of grandstanding with representatives of 50 countries attending, which resulted in a multitude of positions and hindered reaching an agreement on a solution.
Two rounds of talks were held within UN-sponsored Geneva conference on Syria in 2014. The talks stalled and didn’t reach an agreement on a political solution to the crisis in the country, with the Coalition delegation of the so-called opposition refusing to accept to acknowledge that combating terrorism is the top priority, something which was proposed by the government’s delegation.
Lavrov said at the conference that what is needed is holding dialogue in a calm atmosphere with all sides being represented in order to reach a political solution, noting that the opposition members will have the chance to hold talks in a neutral place without any representation of other states.