Iraq announces received an invitation from Russia to participate in the Astana negotiations on Syria as an observer

ARK News… Iraq announced on Saturday that it had received an official invitation from Russia to participate in the next round of Astana negotiations on settling the Syrian crisis.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry confirmed in a statement that the delivery of this invitation came during a meeting held by the senior representative in it, Nizar Al-Khair Allah, with the Russian ambassador to Baghdad, Maximov, last Thursday.

The ministry explained that the two parties exchanged views during the meeting on various international and regional issues of common interest, adding that the Russian ambassador delivered an official invitation to the Iraqi side to participate as an observer in the 15th round of the "Astana Path" negotiations, to be held in the Russian city of Sochi on 16-17. This February, with the aim of discussing developments in the security, political and humanitarian situation in Syria.

The statement indicated that the two sides stressed during the meeting the convergence of their views on ways to settle the Syrian crisis and the need to find a political solution to it through "re-building bridges of trust between Syrians with all their orientations and without external interference."

The meeting also dealt with, according to the statement, the issue of Iraqi students studying in Russian educational institutions and the possibility of their exclusion from the ban imposed on foreigners entering Russian territory due to the Coronavirus pandemic, in addition to discussing the issue of Iraq obtaining the Russian vaccine "Sputnik V" against Corona.

Source: RT (translated from Arabic)

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