Russia said on Saturday that the United States has welcomed the outcome of the recent round of the Syria settlement talks held in Astana this week.
During an interview with the Mir television channel, Russian Foreign minister said that the US itself has proposed to stop violence in Syria.
“The United States itself has proposed to stop violence in the areas hit by the most severe clashes between the [Syrian] government and [the country’s] armed opposition in order to create conditions for the safety of civilians. And it is not a coincidence that the United States has welcomed the result of the Astana meeting — an agreement to create de-escalation zones,” Lavrov said.
The city of Astana has already held four rounds of negotiations between the Syrian government and armed opposition in order to settle the conflict in the Middle Eastern country.
The fourth round took place in Wednesday and Thursday (May 3 and 4), and resulted in a memorandum signed by the Syrian ceasefire guarantor states (Russia, Iran, Turkey) aimed at creation of four zones of de-escalation in Syria, which include the province of Idlib and seven other regions.
The memorandum took effect on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow and other countries-guarantors of memorandum have provided the United States with all the information on the document.
Talking to Sputnik on Saturday, Ryabkov stressed that the US has all information needed on the memorandum, a day after Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said that the Russian military had not communicated the US side and he was not aware of the issues related to the memorandum, such as ban on flights of the US aircraft in the de-escalation zones in western Syria.
For his part, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov also said that the flights by US-led coalition aircraft over the de-escalation zones were being discussed by military officials.
Source: Agencies
