TEHRAN — Iran, Russia and Turkey are set to hold parliamentary consultations in Ankara early next year, a Russian lawmaker said on Tuesday.

“We have an agreement with Turkey and Iran to hold regular trilateral joint meetings of foreign affairs committees,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian upper house's Foreign Affairs Committee.

“The first such meeting took place in the end of the spring session in Moscow. The second meeting is scheduled to take place early next year in Turkey's Ankara. We, for our part, have already agreed to the dates, but we are still waiting for the confirmation by our Iranian partners,” Kosachev said at a press conference, Urdu Point reported.

He said Tehran has confirmed that it will host the third meeting in the second half of 2020.

“And then it will be Russia’s turn again. So, we are having a mechanism of regular biannual joint meetings of foreign affairs committees of the three parliaments,” Kosachev added.

The three countries have, in part, worked together to help resolve the conflict in Syria. They serve as guarantors of the Syrian ceasefire.

The Astana peace talks were launched on Jan. 23-24, 2017 with the aim of putting an end to the Syrian conflict.

Kazakhstan has hosted multiple rounds of talks on Syria since January 2017, backed by the three power brokers, most of which involved delegations from the Syrian government and opposition.

The 14th round of talks kicked off in Nursultan (formerly called Astana) earlier this month, with a focus on technical issues, in the northern part of Syria, the area of Idlib, and the banks of the Euphrates.

MH/PA