Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Iran-Turkey-Russia talks have been “most effective” in tackling crisis in Syria.

According to Sputnik, in a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Russia’s MAKS-2019 air show on Tuesday, Putin praised the results, achieved by the Astana format, which includes Russia, Turkey and Iran, calling it the “most effective mechanism” in resolving the Syrian crisis.

He added that the key task at hand for the format is to achieve stabilization of the situation “on the ground”.

In line with their security cooperation, Iran, Turkey and Russia launched the Astana peace talks on the Syrian crisis.

The Astana peace talks were launched on Jan. 23-24, 2017 with the aim of putting an end to the Syrian conflict.

Kazakhstan has hosted multiple rounds of talks on Syria since January 2017, backed by the three power brokers, most of which involved delegations from the Syrian government and opposition.

The 13th round of talks was held in Nursultan, the new name of Kazakhstan’s capital, on August 1-2.

In this round of talks international bodies such as the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross were also present.

NA