Russia’s Lavrov to Meet Syria Opposition in Moscow

Local Editor

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to hold a meeting with representatives of the Syrian opposition, the Russian foreign ministry said Wednesday.

"The meeting is scheduled to be held in Moscow on January 27," the ministry's press service told TASS on Wednesday.

Alexander Lavrentyev, head of the Russian delegation to the Astana meeting on Syria, said earlier that a delegation of the armed Syrian opposition would visit Moscow on January 27.

Syrian opposition, including the Moscow, Cairo and Riyadh groups, had received the invitation, Cairo group leader Jihad Makdissi told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"We received an invitation from Russia to take part in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Larov. Aside from us, representatives of other platforms, including Moscow and Riyadh, have been invited," Makdissi said.

The Cairo group "has not yet received any formal invitations to the Geneva talks" on Syrian reconciliation, according to the opposition figure.

The Astana talks on settling the Syrian crisis were held on January 23-24 resulting in a communique which stipulates establishing a mechanism to monitor the Syrian ceasefire.

Representatives from Damascus and the armed opposition in the Kazakh capital were expected to hold their first face-to-face talks since the conflict erupted in 2011, but the opposition refused amid a bitter war of words and mediators had to shuttle between the two sides.

Russia sidelined the West with its new diplomatic push to find a political settlement to the war in Syria.

The war in Syria had cost some 310,000 lives and forced millions to flee the country since the conflict in 2011.