Russian deputy foreign minister meets leader of Syria’s Kurdish Union

MOSCOW, August 12 /TASS/. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is the Russian president’s envoy for the Middle East and Africa, has met a representative of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union, Saleh Muslim, to discuss ways of forming a broad Syrian opposition platform for negotiations with the Syrian government, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. "The sides had a detailed exchange of views on development of the situation in and around Syria," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The focus was made on the need to implement the Russian proposal to create a broad anti-terror front, which will include Kurdish self-defense detachments, to counteract the global threat coming from the Islamic State (IS)," the ministry went on to say. Other topics for discussion included the task of forming a unified Syrian opposition platform, which will represent the entire spectrum of Syrian opposition groups, for negotiations with the Syrian government with an aim to implement the Geneva communique adopted on June 30, 2012. "It provides a constructive foundation, to which there’s no alternative, for reaching a political settlement of the Syrian crisis," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed. Russian Foreign Ministry officials will meet representatives of other Syrian opposition groups, including Khaled Khoja, the leader of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, and a delegation of the Cairo-2 Committee in the next few days. On August 11, Bogdanov met Qadri Jamil, a representative of the Syrian opposition Popular Front for Change and Liberation. Read more