Iran, Russia, Turkey hold 7th summit of Astana peace process
The seventh summit of the Astana process was held on Tuesday in Tehran and attended by Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Addressing the event, Raeisi said Syria's fate had to be decided by its own people and that military intervention will only aggravate the situation there.
He called on the United States to withdraw its forces "from the entire region, including from Syria, as soon as possible".
The Russian president also addressed the event, condemning the West for plundering Syria’s natural wealth with the intention of disintegrating the country.
Putin also called on the UN to provide humanitarian aid to Damascus without any preconditions.
Concluding his remarks, the Russian head of state considered the seventh summit to have been fruitful.
Meanwhile, Turkey's president also called the Astana process the only platform that had taken necessary measures for peace in Syria.
“We are all like-minded concerning [the fact] that the Syrian crisis can only be resolved through political solutions,” Erdogan added.
The Astana process was launched in 2017 at the initiative of Iran, Russia and Turkey on how to reduce tensions in Syria.
The summit ended by issuance of a final statement, through which, the Astana process’s guarantor states likewise insisted that there were no military solutions to the Syrian conflict, and underlined their resolve to continue their cooperation in the fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
