TEHRAN, February 1. /TASS/. Tehran and Moscow continue to cooperate in order to solve the Syrian crisis, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan told the Tasnim news agency on Wednesday.

"Cooperation that we have been maintaining from the very beginning in the form of consultations, planning and training, still goes on. The successes achieved on the ground have facilitated political efforts particularly aimed at arranging intra-Syrian talks," General Dehghan stressed.

He praised the Astana meeting on settling the Syrian crisis held on January 23-24 and expressed hope that the meeting would become the first step on the way to solving the conflict, that would "allow the Syrians to decide their future for themselves."