ANKARA, January 4. / TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held a telephone conference on the situation in the Middle East, the Turkish Foreign Ministry told TASS on Saturday.

"Our minister had a telephone conversation with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. They discussed the latest developments in Syria, Libya and Iraq, as well as other regional issues," the source said.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon confirmed that a missile strike near the Baghdad airport killed the head of the Quds Force Qasem Soleimani. The operation was carried out at the direction of US President Donald Trump, the statement said.

According to the Pentagon, the strike was defensive, since it was aimed at protecting US troops in Iraq and other countries. Washington blamed Soleimani for allegedly approving a rally outside the US Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week. The US claims that Soleimani personally approved the recent attacks on US military bases in Iraq and that he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds US troops at the hands of Shia armed formations supported by Tehran during the campaign aimed to overthrow Saddam Hussein.