Turkey, Russia, Iran to meet in Geneva on Syria

By Selen Temizer

ANKARA

The foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia and Iran will meet in Geneva on Tuesday as part of efforts to find a political solution to the civil war in Syria, diplomatic sources said Monday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will meet his Russian and Iranian counterparts at the UN office and they are expected to announce the committee which will form Syria’s new constitution, said the sources, who refused to be named due to restriction on talking to the media.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will chair the meeting.

During the Syrian peace conference in late January in the Russian city of Sochi, the formation of a committee to develop recommendations to amend the Syrian constitution was agreed upon.

On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia, Turkey and Iran will present a list of candidates for the Syrian Constitutional Committee to the UN.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on protesters with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to U.N. officials.