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Russia's Putin Hopes Next Round of Syria Talks Bring Resolution


Russia's President Vladimir Putin, left, and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, right, attend meeting at Cairo International Airport, Feb. 9, 2015.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin, left, and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, right, attend meeting at Cairo International Airport, Feb. 9, 2015.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he expected that there would be a new round of talks on the Syria conflict following from a meeting of some opposition figures and the Damascus government in Moscow last month.

Standing next to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after talks in Cairo, Putin said: “We look forward ... to the next round of such talks, which ultimately I hope will lead to a peaceful settlement of the situation in Syria.”

The next meeting between some Syrian opposition figures and the Damascus government in Moscow are set to take place in about a month, a participant in the consultations in Russia had said on Jan. 30.

The Moscow talks, which ended on Jan. 29, were not seen as yielding a breakthrough as they were shunned by the key political opposition and did not involve the main insurgent groups fighting on the ground in Syria.

Moscow has been a long-standing ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose government has dubbed many of its opponents as terrorists.

Russia says combating terrorism should be a top priority in Syria. The conflict has killed more than 200,000 people since protests against Assad started in 2011 and then descended into a war in which radical Islamists have now gained the upper hand among the anti-Assad forces.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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