Putin received the support of Rouhani and Erdogan: A meeting on Syria will be held in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin received the support of his colleagues from Turkey and Iran for the idea of ​​holding a meeting in Russia on the solution to the Syrian conflict, where representatives of the government and the opposition would gather.

At a mini-summit in Sochi yesterday, Putin gathered the presidents of Turkey and Iran, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani, with the intention of encouraging the Syrian peace process.

Yesterday, after the meeting, the three presidents said that they support the holding of the "Congress", which is a Russian initiative launched at the end of October, but which has not moved since then.

At the same time, the main factions of the Syrian opposition, which started negotiations yesterday in Riyadh at the invitation of Saudi Arabia, did not react to that initiative.

The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who attended the meetings of the Syrian opposition and rated them as extremely important, is scheduled to arrive in Russia today.

The goal of the opposition meetings in Riyadh is to form a single delegation that will represent the Syrian opposition at the negotiations that should begin on November 28 in Geneva under the auspices of the UN.

The Russian president believes that a meeting with political forces in Russia would be an incentive for the peace process in Geneva.

Yesterday, after the summit with Erdogan and Rouhani, Putin said that a "new stage for solving the crisis" was opening in Syria, but he assessed that it was clear that the process would not be simple and that it would require compromises and concessions from all participants, including the Syrian government.

In preparation for the meeting in Sochi, Putin had numerous diplomatic contacts, on Monday he received Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, for whom it was his first trip abroad since 2015, and on Tuesday he had a series of telephone conversations with world officials, including the president USA by Donald Trump.

The idea of ​​the Syrian Congress in Russia was also criticized by the West, considering that all political negotiations should be held within the framework of the Geneva process, which the UN has been leading since 2014 and which should continue on November 28.

Russia and Iran, allies of the government in Damascus, and Turkey, which supports Syrian rebels, sponsored a parallel process in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, during which "de-escalation zones" were agreed on Syrian territory.

Thanks to those zones, the tension on the ground was reduced and the representatives of the government and the opposition were gathered at one table to discuss military issues at a time when the negotiations in Geneva were at a dead end.

However, there are many doubts about the idea of ​​holding the Syrian Congress. No date has yet been set and Erdogan is adamant that the Kurdish militias that control parts of northern Syria cannot take part in resolving the crisis.

On the other hand, the opposition is under pressure to make concessions, especially regarding the quick departure of President Bashar al-Assad.