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Conflict in Syria

Iranian minister refutes info on political bloc with Turkey, Qatar, Iraq

“Only the Syrian people can decide on the country’s future and we’ll cooperate with all the countries willing to put an end to it and to eliminate this humanitarian disaster,” Zarif said

© EPA/NABIL MOUNZER

KUWAIT CITY, February 26 (Itar-Tass) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has refuted the reports that claimed Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and Iraq had set up a political bloc for resolving the Syrian crisis, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA said.

“I haven’t heard anything about a bloc of this kind until this very moment,” the agency quoted him as saying. He also added that Iran had trust only in a political settlement of the Syrian crisis.

“Only the Syrian people can decide on the country’s future and we’ll cooperate with all the countries willing to put an end to it and to eliminate this humanitarian disaster,” Zarif said.

He made this statement at a news conference in Tehran upon the end of talks with his Qatari counterpart, Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah who said on his part both states would like to put an end to bloodshed in Syria but they still had differences in what concerned the means of attaining the common goal.

“The presence of different viewpoints doesn’t imply an absence of discussions on certain regional issues,” Al Attiyah said.

Both ministers confirmed that an intergovernmental committee for the discussion of the Syrian problem enabled deputy foreign ministers on both sides to maintain permanent dialogue on the issue.

Reports in Arabic news media said earlier Iraq, Iran, Qatar, and Turkey might set up a regional political bloc aimed at a search for the ways of untangling the Syrian conflict.

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