Vienna format for Syria only start of long way for peace settlement - Lavrov

YEREVAN, November 9. /TASS/. The talks in Vienna on the Syria settlement have become just the beginning of a long and complex process of peace settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. "The October 30 meeting on Syria was just the beginning of a long and difficult process," he said. "For the first time practically all external players, who have influence on this or that group on the ground: either the government army or the so-called moderate opposition, were gathered at one negotiating table." He noted that a lot of radical groups wanted external support, including from the region, from the non-government sector. "And still, all understand that external players are called to play a decisive role in creating conditions to stop the bloodshed and force, this verb is absolutely in place here, all Syrians to sit down at a negotiating table to decide not only teir own future but the future of their state," Lavrov stressed. He noted that the Vienna meeting of October 30 had yielded a common document. "The Vienna format is now the basic, if not the sole, format of negotiations on settlement in Syria," he stressed. Read more