Iran will probably host a meeting between the warring sides in Syria, a top Iranian diplomat said on Monday, MNA reported.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the deputy foreign minister for Arab and African Affairs, said Iran is in negotiations with the Beshar al-Assad government and the opposition groups to end the 19-month conflict in the country through dialogue.
"Since about a year ago, we have been holding talks with the conflicting parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian National Council... we made efforts to prepare the ground for holding a national dialogue between the opposition groups and the government," Amir-Abdollahian told the Mehr News Agency.
Meanwhile, UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said on Monday that Syria's conflict is going from bad to worse, expressing disappointment that his four-day truce plan had failed.
"I have said and it bears repeating again and again that the Syrian crisis is very very dangerous, the situation is bad and getting worse," Brahimi said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
"If it's not a civil war, I don't know what it is," Brahimi said after describing a Syrian woman whose two sons were fighting in opposing armies in the conflict.
"This civil war must end," he said, according to Khaleej Times.
Russia had thrown its support behind Brahimi's call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's army and the rebels to lay down arms during the Eid al-Adha holiday.
However shelling and car bombings resumed hours after the ceasefire had been due to take effect on Friday, with each side blaming the other for breaking it, and the envoy admitted that they may have been done by rogue groups.
Brahimi said that some bomb blasts "during the Eid period in the civilian population area are definitely terrorist acts by groups we have no contact with," calling them "definitely condemnable".
The envoy said the failed appeal will not discourage him from looking for a solution to the crisis in Syria, calling on the international community to "come together and help the people of Syria find a solution to their crisis
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