DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — Tehran welcomes the process of joining of new states to the Syrian settlement process, especially if such countries could contribute to the solution of the crisis in the country by political means, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Sunday.
Iran, along with Russia and Turkey, has made a number of efforts aimed at cessation of hostilities in Syria, such as convocation of settlement talks in Astana and establishment of a trilateral mechanism on monitoring the ceasefire in the war-torn country.
"Russia and Iran have a common goal — to reach a political settlement of the Syrian crisis and now are contributing to rapprochement of the positions of the parties [to the conflict]… We welcome joining of other countries, which could support the process of political settlement," Larijani said in an interview with the Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen broadcaster.
The Kazakh capital has already held two rounds of the talks between the Syrian government and armed opposition groups brokered by Ankara, Moscow and Tehran. During the Astana talks, such countries, as Jordan and the United States had been playing the role of observer states.
