MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. Coordination of efforts against the Islamic State militant group in the Middle East was high on the agenda of a meeting on Thursday between senior diplomats from Russia and France, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister and the president’s special representative for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov, and the French officials - Jacques Audibert, the senior diplomatic adviser to French President Francois Hollande, and Nicolas de Riviere, the French Foreign Ministry political director, - had "a frank and extensive exchange of views on the current military and political situation in the Middle East with emphasis on the state of affairs in and around Syria alongside Lebanon and the Palestinian-Israeli settlement", the ministry said following the consultations in Paris.
Particular attention was paid to "the task of coordinating multifaceted efforts to respond effectively to the threat of terrorism posed by Islamic State and other radical groups", the ministry said. The sides noted that "counter-terrorism actions should run in parallel with active consolidated work to promote a political settlement to the Syrian crisis based on the Geneva communique of June 30, 2012 with a view to further social and economic resurgence in Syria", it said.
After the consultations, the diplomats "confirmed the need to continue a regular political dialogue between Moscow and Paris on key aspects of the situation in the Middle East", the ministry added.