MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. Russia expects that more meetings on the situation around Syria will be held with Turkey and Iran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told TASS.

"We’ll see. I hope [more meetings] will certainly take place. We maintain good relations with both Turkey and Iran, and I think it would be useful to continue [discussions on Syria]," said Bogdanov, who also serves as special presidential envoy for the Middle East and Africa.

Syria has been in conflict since 2011. The Astana talks, also known as the Astana format, were founded in 2017, with 21 meetings held to date. The Astana format includes Russia, Iran, and Turkey as guarantor countries in the process of resolving the Syrian crisis, alongside representatives of the Syrian government and opposition, the United Nations, and observer countries: Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq.

On the morning of November 27, the Jabhat al-Nusra extremist group (banned in Russia) launched a large-scale attack on a broad front in northern Syria. By the evening of December 7, opposition forces occupied Aleppo, Hama, Deraa, and Homs and on December 8 they entered Damascus as government troops left the city. President Bashar Assad resigned and fled the country. On December 10, Mohammed al-Bashir, who had served as prime minister of the so-called Salvation Government, the civilian administration formed by opposition groups in the Idlib governorate, since January, declared himself the head of the Syrian government for the transitional period to last until March 1, 2025.