US working hard to avoid total destruction of Syria, says Kerry; Saudi urges Iran to stop ‘meddling’ in neighbourhood

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MADRID, Oct 19, (Agencies): The United States is working to avoid the “total destruction” of Syria, and plans a meeting in the coming days with Russian, Saudi and Turkish leaders to seek an end to the conflict, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday. “I will be coming back in a few days and I will meet with leaders of Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to work through … options that could perhaps reignite the political process and bring about a political transition in Syria,” he said on a stop in Madrid.

In Moscow a source cited by the Ria Novosti news agency said a meeting between Kerry and the foreign ministers of Russia and Saudi Arabia — who back opposing sides in Syria’s war — could be held “soon” in Vienna. Washington considers that it bears the responsiblity “to try and avoid the complete and total destruction of Syria”, fearing the potential fallout across the region and a possible surge in migration, Kerry said in Madrid. “We have a moral interest to try and stop this unfolding catastrophe,” he said following talks with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia- Margallo.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Monday urged Iran to stop “meddling” in the affairs of the kingdom’s neighbours, warning that Riyadh stood ready to confront Tehran’s actions. Iran openly backs President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war and is accused of also being behind rebels who overran large parts of Yemen last year and early this year. “We wish that Iran would change its policies and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” Adel al-Jubeir said at joint press briefing with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Riyadh.

“It is difficult to have positive relations” with Tehran, “when Saudi Arabia and its people are the target of continuous aggression” from the kingdom’s arch rival, said Jubeir. Saudi Arabia supports rebel groups who are fighting to oust Assad in the Syrian conflict. Elsewhere, government forces advanced Monday under the cover of Russian airstrikes toward an air base besieged by the Islamic State group in northern Syria, a Syrian military official and activists said, while a rebel military commander was killed in another battle in a nearby area.

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