Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said here on Sunday that Iran supports a "Syrian-Syrian resolution" to the ongoing crisis in Syria, and the opposition's willingness to negotiate with the Syrian government is "a good step forward".

"It's been two years that the crisis is going on. No one side is being able to take over the other side," said Salehi in a panel discussion in the Munich Security Conference.

"If we want to stop the bloodshed, we cannot continue putting the blame one side on the other," he said.

Salehi had talked with Sheikh Moaz Al-Khatib, President of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, on the sidelines of the conference.

"I was very happy to hear that he was ready to enter into an negotiation with the representative of the government, of course, with some pre-conditions," said Salehi, "But this is a good step forward."

"What we now have in our hand is the opposition and the government fighting each other everyday ... people were being killed. The first thing is to bring the opposition and the government to negotiate with each other on a negotiation table," Salehi said.

Before arriving in Munich for the conference, Salehi told visiting Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad in Tehran that Iran was against foreign military intervention in Syria.

"We do not claim that this (Syrian) government is impeccable. But at the same time, we do not agree that it is the right thing of descriptions from the outside for Syrian," Salehi said in Munich, adding that "It is upon the people in Syria to decide themselves ... I think one of the ways of defining democracy is this."

Iran has proposed a six point plan for solving the Syrian crisis, asking a halt of all acts of violence and the armed conflict in Syria under the supervision of the United Nations as the first step.

Salehi said that he was not in a place to tell the head of Syria that "you should step back, somebody else have to take your place", and he had told Syrian opposition leader Al-Khatib that the only way to solve the Syrian crisis is to "sit with the government, form an interim government, draft a new constitution, and make parliamentary election, make your presidential election, under the international supervision so that every side is assured of the authenticity the process." And then "let the people elect whoever they wish to elect."

"Let's wait and see, how history will judge upon all of us," Salehi said. Endi

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)