Efforts to promote political process in Syria to be continued - Russian diplomat

GENEVA, July 26. /TASS/. Participants in the trilateral consultations on Syria held in the format Russia-US-UN in Geneva agreed that further efforts are needed to promote the political process and resume the intra-Syrian dialogue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Tuesday. "As for the date of a next round of talks, we believe it should be launched as soon as possible," he stressed. "United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura is also interested in it but so far he is undecided about concrete dates." The date will depend on "how soon the documents Russian and American military experts are working on are finalized," he noted. "The background for discussions" in Geneva, According to Gatilov, was made up of the recent agreements between Russia and the United States geared at invigorating efforts against terrorist groups, first of all, Jabhat al-Nusra (outlawed in Russia). "Our position is that there must be no preliminary conditions for the launch of another round of intra-Syrian talks," the Russian deputy minister said, adding that not a single document agreed by Russia and the United States in the recent time has any mention of such preconditions. Touching on difficulties in the negotiating process, Gatilov drew attention to the fact that "the problem of separating the so-called moderate opposition from Jabhat al-Nusra has not yet been resolved." "Russian and U.S military experts are actively working on it," he said. Another unsolved problem is to form a unified Syrian opposition delegation to the talks. "Once we are speaking about the necessity of an inclusive negotiating process, it means that the opposition should represent the interest of all groups," the Russian diplomat said. "It should not be only the so-called Riyadh group. It should embrace all other representatives of the opposition, such as the Moscow platform, the Cairo platform, the Hmeimim group, i.e. those people who are living in Syria and represent the interest of their population strata. And, naturally, no substantive talks can be organized without the Kurds." Read more