Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday US participation in the meeting on Syria in Astana would be useful.
“As you know, we regularly invited representatives of the United States to such meetings as observers. They initially took part, then they decided to leave these invitations unanswered. Although I am sure that [US participation] would certainly be useful,” the foreign minister told reporters in Moscow.
In September last year, the Russian and Turkish presidents, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan respectively, agreed to create a demilitarized zone in Idlib along the contact line between the armed opposition and the Syrian government forces, while the Russian and Turkish defense ministers signed a memorandum on stabilizing the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone.