TEHRAN – In a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday afternoon, President Hassan Rouhani announced that Tehran is ready to host trilateral summit between Iran, Turkey and Russia as the battle in Idlib is raging.

“Trilateral cooperation at different levels is of special importance and as has been announced earlier Iran is quite ready to host the next round of the trilateral summit,” Rouhani said, according the presidential media office.

Rouhani noted that the lives of the innocent people in Idlib province should be protected and at the same time the terrorists in the region must be purged.

“In view of the gathering of dangerous terrorists and the need to protect the lives of innocent people living in the region, the issue of Idlib is very complicated.  On one hand, the lives of innocent people should be protected, and on the other hand, terrorists should be uprooted,” Rouhani said in his phone talks with Erdogan.

Rouhani went on to say that the Astana process engineered by Iran, Russia and Turkey for resolving the Syrian conflict must not be undermined.

The Iranian president went on to say that that the intensification of tension in the region will not benefit anyone, insisting on Tehran’s long-held policy that Syrian conflict must be resolved through dialogue.

“Surely, the intensification of tension in the region will benefit neither side, and we must resolve the issues through dialogue and do not allow the Astana process to be weakened.”

PA/PA