The foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, Turkey and Qatar couldmeet next week to attend to the recent escalation in Syria, where an Islamist-led rebel alliance seized territory from the control of President Bashar al-Assads government in a lightning offensive.The four-way talks might take place in Doha on Dec.
7-8, according to Russias state-run TASS news agency, which cites Iranian and Arabic media protection of bilateral talks in between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.Russia, Turkey and Iran have held talks on Syrias future as part of the Astana peace procedure considering that a minimum of 2015.
Syria has been at war given that Assad cracked down on democracy demonstrations in 2011.
The conflict has actually given that drawn in foreign powers in addition to jihadists, and has actually left 500,000 individuals dead.The war had actually been mainly inactive with Assad back in control of much of the country, till recently when the Islamist-led rebel alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) started its offensive.The attack has actually seen swaths of Syria fall to rebel control, consisting of the second city Aleppo, home to 2 million individuals, for the very first time because the start of the civil war.Nearly 50,000 people have actually also been freshly displaced since the end of November, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Monday.Russia very first intervened directly in Syrias war in 2015 with strikes on rebel-held areas.On Monday, President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkianpledged unconditional support for the Assad federal government, according to the Kremlin.Earlier that day, Assad slammed the HTS-led rebel offensive in a call with Iran's Pezeshkian as an effort to redraw the local map in line with United States interests.The United States, the United Nations and the European Union required de-escalation, with the EU condemning Russia for carrying out air strikes in assistance of Assad.AFP contributed reporting.