Iran stopped anti-Syrian move at Lausanne talks

TEHRAN, Oct. 18 (MNA) – Adviser to FM Zarif said the Iranian delegation at Lausanne talks stopped the other sides from taking an anti-Syrian decision, adding Iran managed to balance the composition of negotiating countries. Hossein Sheikholeslam, Adviser to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, discussed the Sat. Lausanne talks on Syria with Mehr News, adding “Qatar and Saudi Arabia which are away from the scene unfolding in Syria and are in fact sponsoring the terrorists, were present at the talks, so we brought in Iraq and Egypt, which is an Arab country with an anti-terrorist stance, to balance out the composition of the negotiating countries.” He went on to add, “Saudi Arabia has become too weakened and no longer has the capacity to represent Arab countries, so we preferred to add Egypt with its capacity to coordinate Arabs to the equation.” “So our first impact on the talks was that we managed to balance the composition of participating members,” he said. Sheikholeslam stressed the importance of Iran’s participation in international talks on Syria, adding “we need to make efforts to convince the other sides that military approaches will have no useful results in Syria. It appears that all believe it in words, but not when it comes to action.” About the anti-Syrian move he said, “they wanted to issue a statement against the government and nation of Syria, and blame the Syrian government for everything. Of course, we will not allow something like that to ever happen.” “Iran’s presence at the talks stopped them from achieving their goal and we managed to at least prevent a move against Syria,” he added.