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US unable to contribute to resolving Syrian conflict — Iranian top diplomat

Iran has "good communication and coordination with Russia", the top diplomat also emphasized

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif believes that the US is only capable of supporting terrorists as far as the Syria issue goes, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday.

"We have good communication and coordination with Russia and with the Syrian government and we will continue to do so. Our objective here is very clear, that is our objectives and the objective of the Russian Federation and that is to fight against terrorism and extremism," Zarif said, as cited by the news agency.

"If President Trump wants to take credit for it, he should take credit for supporting Daesh [or the Islamic State - IS, ISIS - a terror group outlawed in Russia - TASS], which has been what the US and its allies have been doing all along," Zarif added, commenting on the Helsinki meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, who particularly discussed the Syrian conflict.

"The fact that US arms, US weapons have been found in the hands of ISIS and other extremist organizations is documented… by western sources. So I think we should look at the realities, those who fought terrorism… are the Syrian people and those who work with the Syrian people," the Iranian top diplomat pointed out.

Putin-Trump meeting

The first full-fledged talks between the presidents of Russia and the United States took place in Finland’s capital of Helsinki on Monday. The one-on-one meeting between Putin and Trump lasted more than two hours, later delegation members joined the presidents for a working lunch. The Russian delegation was composed of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov. The US delegation included Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. The expanded session also took about two hours.

The US president said after the talks that the US and Russia’s positions on Syria had moved closer. The Russian leader, in turn, pointed out that the Kremlin and the White House had everything that was necessary for cooperation in resolving the humanitarian crisis Syria was facing. Putin stressed that efforts to establish peace in Syria "could prove to be a model of successful cooperation.".