Moscow hopes West won't obstruct efforts by Russia, Turkey, Iran to create Syrian constitutional committee - Lavrov
MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax) - Russia hopes that Western countries will not obstruct further efforts by Moscow, Ankara, and Tehran to create the Syrian constitutional committee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said following high-level Russian-Turkish talks.
"We do hope that everyone, including our Western colleagues, who called on the Astana troika so persistently and consistently to promptly complete the work on the creation of the constitutional committee over the past few months will not obstruct our further efforts," he said.
"It was stated that Russia and Turkey, in cooperation with our Iranian colleagues, have done everything we promised to do on the formation of the constitutional committee, which should start working in Geneva, and this was done with the active mediation efforts of the governments of our countries between the government and the opposition," Lavrov said.
"We will continue to actively promote the beginning of the work of this constitutional committee, now with the new UN Special Envoy for Syria Mr. [Geir] Pedersen, who, I understand, will take office in the first half of January," he said.