Russia, Turkey, Iran to hold Syria talks

MOSCOW (AFP) — The foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey were set to hold talks on Syria yesterday in the wake of an alleged chemical attack that has exposed differences between the three powers.

The three nations have been attempting to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict at talks that started last year in Astana, Kazakhstan, in competition with the United States- and United Nationsbacked Geneva initiative.

The latest talks in Moscow between two of Assad’s key supporters, Moscow and Tehran, and rebel-backer Ankara come as the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma last April 7 has prompted sharply differing responses from Turkey and Russia.

“I curse those who carried out this massacre,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, adding that he welcomed Western air strikes in retaliation as “appropriate.”

Meanwhile, Russia said the attack was staged to discredit its ally Syrian President Bashar-al Assad who brought a group of Syrians to the global chemical arms watchdog this week to back its claims.

French President Emmanuel Macron this month suggested the air strikes had driven a wedge between Ankara and Moscow as they have been building increasingly close ties.

This prompted an angry denial from Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said the countries’ relations “are not so weak that the French president can break them.”

Alexander Shumilin, a Middle East expert at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow, however, said the Douma fallout had “caused a crack in the alliance of three countries.”

“If the trio falls apart entirely, the ensuing events could be really bad,” he added.

Turkey has a “completely different attitude” to resolving the conflict and Assad’s fate, according to Shumilin, while Iran is seeking to destabilize the region to hurt Israel and Russia wants to “stabilize and leave.”