MOSCOW. May 10 (Interfax) - The foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran are meeting in Moscow to discuss a peace settlement in Syria, an Interfax correspondent reported.
The four ministers - Sergei Lavrov, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Faisal Mekdad and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian - are meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry's Reception House.
They posed for a joint photo before the meeting began.
Cavusoglu said earlier that he was planning to have talks with Lavrov on the meeting's sidelines. According to Cavusoglu, the meeting is due to help bring stability to Syria and guarantee its territorial integrity.
The defense ministers of Russia, Syria and Turkey met in Moscow on December 28, 2022. Those were the first negotiations between the defense ministers of Turkey and Syria in 11 years. The sides agreed to set up a trilateral commission.
The consultations were due to be followed by a meeting of the three foreign ministers to discuss possible negotiations between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was announced later that Iran would also attend the meeting of foreign ministers.
Moscow hosted a meeting of the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran in April. The Turkish Defense Ministry called the meeting constructive and said that the sides had underlined the importance of further dialogue in the quadripartite format.