TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that Iran seriously supports interaction between the United Nations and Damascus.

During a meeting with UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen, Zarif said that Iran is determined to help settle the crisis in Syria politically.

Zarif pointed to Iran’s efforts to fight terrorism and extremism in Syria and expressed Tehran’s support for formation of a constitutional committee with cooperation of parties to the Astana talks.

Pedersen informed Zarif about the latest efforts and consultations with other countries in line with settling the crisis in Syria.

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 in January 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/PA