14 March 2017, 06:48 GMT
ASTANA (Sputnik) — The Iranian delegation head, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari, said on Tuesday he was hopeful about the talks ahead of the meeting with the Russian delegation.
"We are always having hope," Ansari told reporters, asked about his expectations prior to the meeting with the Russian delegation.
Earlier in the day, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said that Russian-Turkish and Russian-Iranian consultations were due to take place on the sidelines of Astana talks.
On Tuesday, the intra-Syrian peace talks officially kicked off in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
