{"id":14717,"date":"2018-09-11T17:29:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T17:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14717"},"modified":"2018-09-11T17:29:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T17:29:09","slug":"diplomats-from-iran-russia-turkey-meet-un-envoy-on-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14717","title":{"rendered":"Diplomats from Iran, Russia, Turkey meet UN envoy on Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1370401\/middle-east\" readability=\"54\">\n<p>\nGENEVA: The UN envoy for Syria hosted key diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey on Tuesday to discuss work toward rewriting the country\u2019s constitution, amid concerns about a possibly devastating military offensive on rebel-held Idlib province.<br \/>The talks led by Staffan de Mistura started and ended with little or no comment to reporters at the UN offices in Geneva, and offered a sideshow to the concerns about a looming battle for the northern province \u2014 the last remaining rebel stronghold in Syria after 7\u00bd years of war and now home to some 3 million civilians.<br \/>De Mistura\u2019s spokesman, Michael Contet, said in an email that any debriefing by the envoy about the meeting will be \u201creserved\u201d for comments that he plans to make to UN Security Council next Tuesday.<br \/>On Monday, the head of the UN humanitarian agency, Mark Lowcock, warned that Idlib could see \u201cthe worst humanitarian catastrophe, with the biggest loss of life of the 21st century.\u201d<br \/>Iran and Russia have backed a military campaign on Idlib involving Syrian President Bashar Assad\u2019s forces, despite Turkey\u2019s pleas for a cease-fire.<br \/>Before Tuesday\u2019s meeting, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, a special envoy for Iran\u2019s foreign minister, said a \u201cgood result\u201d could emerge. Asked whether Iran shared the concerns about a possible humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib, Jaberi Ansari replied: \u201cWe are worried too. We are trying to avoid this.\u201d<br \/>Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, declined to answer a question on his way into the talks about whether Russia would stop its airstrikes.<br \/>De Mistura met informally with members of the three delegations on Monday.<br \/>The talks are set to focus on creating a constitutional committee under Syria\u2019s Russian- and Iranian-backed government. Russia, Turkey and Iran have been working together as \u201cguarantors\u201d for a series of talks around ending Syria\u2019s war. Turkey has taken in 3.5 million refugees from its neighbor.<br \/>On Monday, airstrikes on Idlib and Hama provinces forced some people to flee their homes, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GENEVA: The UN envoy for Syria hosted key diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey on Tuesday to discuss work toward rewriting the country\u2019s constitution, amid concerns about a possibly devastating military offensive on rebel-held Idlib province.The talks led by Staffan de Mistura started and ended with little or no comment to reporters at the UN&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}