The United States does everything to prevent the creation of the Syrian constitutional committee that is supposed to lead political transition in the war-torn country, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd September, 2019) The United States does everything to prevent the creation of the Syrian constitutional committee that is supposed to lead political transition in the war-torn country, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday.Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia and its partners from the Astana format were doing everything possible to form the committee and that he intended to discuss the issue with Zarif during their meeting on Monday.
"It is very important that over the past four years the sides of the Astana [peace] process have managed to settle many acute issues thanks to it. Unfortunately, the United States has always been insincere in its fight against terrorism. It pursues other goals, one of which is a constant defamation of the Astana format. For example, last year there was an agreement to form a constitutional committee in Syria, but the United States has done everything to undermine this agreement. And, unfortunately, it has succeeded. And now we have to do deal with this [issue] again," Zarif said in an interview with Rossiya 24 news channel.
The Syrian Civil War has been going on since 2011 with President Bashar Assad's forces fighting against different insurgent groups.
The Astana trio, which includes Russia, Turkey and Iran, has been trying to bring the conflicting side together to achieve peaceful settlement since the first meeting in Astana (now Nur Sultan) in January 2017.
On August 2, a new round of talks on the Syria conflict settlement concluded without reaching any comprehensive agreements. Two compromises were reached during the talks, including an agreement that the constitutional committee could be formed by September and the long-discussed truce in the province of Idlib entered into force.
