Al-Assad Meets With Lavrentiev Ahead of Astana Talks

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed on Thursday with the special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lavrentiev, and his accompanying delegation the latest developments on the political track.

The discussions focused most notably on the upcoming Astana talks and the ongoing meetings of the Constitutional Committee.

Lavrentiev presented to the Syrian President the ongoing preparations for holding the next meeting in the Astana format, while stressing the need to work on this track without external interference that would impede any positive outcome.

SANA news agency stated that "the talks also dealt with the latest situation in the region and the efforts exerted by Russia in support of Syrian people against terrorism and sanctions, based on its firm stance on the need to respect the principles of international law and the will of peoples and to adopt dialogue as a basis and only way to find solutions to problems and crises in the world."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu yesterday, and the latter confirmed that his country would continue to work with Moscow to maintain stability in Syria.

Earlier, Major Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the main operations directorate of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, announced that the date for the next round of Astana talks on Syria had been set.