EU, Iran discuss push for peace in Syria

The European Union’s diplomatic chief and Iran’s foreign minister met today in New York to discuss the war in Syria ahead of a UN push for peace talks. A key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, Iran has been kept out of UN diplomatic efforts to end the four-year war that has killed more than 240,000 people.

EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif “underlined the need to bring the war in Syria, which has caused so much suffering, to an end,” said an EU statement.

“They expressed their readiness to cooperate within UN-led efforts and exchanged views on how to contribute to that end,” it added.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is also due to meet with Zarif on Saturday in New York as is 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday. The United Nations had hoped to get a new round of peace talks off the ground this month, but Russia’s military build-up in Syria threw a spanner in the works.