All Parties Should Be Involved in Resolution of Syrian Crisis: Zarif
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javaf Zarif stressed that none of the parties involved in the ongoing crisis in Syria should be ignored in efforts to resolve it, otherwise the settlement of the 5-year-long civil war would be further delayed.
Tehran believes that basically no side of the conflict in Syria should be omitted from the peace-making process, Zarif said in a Wednesday meeting with the President of the 70th United Nations General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft in New York.
“Putting aside any of the regional players would just delay the resolution of crisis,” Zarif noted, adding that Iran is not willing to ignore any regional government or player in the peace process.
The Iranian minister reiterated Tehran’s stance on the political resolution of the war in Syria, saying, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has proposed a plan in this regard, which, if accepted by the interested parties,” is expected to resolve the crises.
Lykketoft, for his part, stressed the need for political solutions to the ongoing problems in the Middle East and using democratic ways to govern the region’s war-torn countries.
Last year, Iran proposed a four-part plan for finding a political solution to the ongoing crisis in Syria, which was welcomed by the UN. Iranian officials say that plan has now been updated and will be implemented in coming days.
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011. In the past four years, more than 220,000 people have died in Syria -overwhelmingly civilians– and around 4 million Syrian people are now refugees in other countries. Another 7.6 million are displaced inside Syria.