Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif after meeting with the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon in New York on Friday told reporters that the meeting with the UN chief mostly focused on the developments in Syria and Yemen, as well as ways to successfully implement the nuclear accord.
“In the meeting with Mr. Ban, we stressed the significance of the proper activities of opposition groups based on international laws that would be acceptable to Syrian people and help establish peace in Syria,” said Zarif.
The Iranian top diplomat further maintained that the opposition in Syria must not have any contacts with terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, ISIL, al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham.
“We still haven’t seen any acceptable list of names of opposition and terrorist groups in Syria,” he noted.
The Iranian minister arrived in New York on Wednesday to attend the third round of international peace talks on Syria. The participants at the conference are attempting to determine a list of names that would differentiate legitimate opposition groups from terrorist groups.
More than 250,000 people have lost their lives and nearly half of the country’s population have been displaced in the foreign-backed conflict that was started in March 2011.
The first round of Syrian peace talks took place on Oct. 30 and the second meeting was held on Nov. 14 in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
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