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Lavrov says Russia-Iran-Turkey format most effective for settling Syrian crisis

"Today’s troika format has proved with practical action it is in demand,"Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. The Russia-Iran-Turkey format today is the most effective one for tackling the crisis in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts Mevlut Cavusoglu and Javad Zarif in Moscow on Tuesday.

"I believe that the format that you can see here is the most effective one," Lavrov said. "Today’s troika format has proved with practical action it is in demand."

"There are other formats, too, such as the International Syria Support Group. It has met in session several times. It adopted important documents that constituted the backbone of the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2254, which required parallel movement along all key lines of settling the Syrian crisis," Lavrov said. "This concerns the termination of violence, combat operations, unhampered delivery of humanitarian aid and the start of an inclusive political process incorporating all Syrian parties concerned without any preconditions."

"We were unanimous that such an approach should be applied by the whole international community," Lavrov said. "Regrettably, the International Syria Support Group since its meeting last spring has failed to play its role to enforce the implementation of the adopted decisions to this day. It was in May that our UN counterparts tried last time to display activity regarding the political process. Then the activity ran dry."