Zarif meets Swiss state secretary in Geneva

TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met on Wednesday morning with Swiss State Secretary Pascale Baeriswyl in Geneva to discuss a range of issues, including the latest developments in the Middle East.

During the meeting, the two sides also discussed recent developments in Tehrn-Bern ties, as well as the fate of the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tasnim reported.

Zarif travelled to Geneva for a ministerial meeting of the Astana Process for peace in Syria.

The chief Iranian diplomat also met with his Russian and Turkish counterparts and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen on Tuesday.

The meeting of foreign ministers of the three member states of the Astana Process coincided with the inaugural meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee.

In a joint communiqué at the end of their meeting, Iran, Russia and Turkey stressed that Syria’s long-awaited constitutional committee must work independently and far from any foreign interference in order to draw maximum support from all walks of the Syrian nation.

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

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.