Iraq plans to join Astana talks on Syria settlement – ambassador

Baghdad plans to join upcoming talks in Kazakhstan on settling the Syrian crisis, TASS quoted Iraq’s Ambassador to Russia, Haidar Mansour Hadi, as saying on Tuesday. “I want to ask the Russian leadership to invite Iraq to attend the talks in Astana,” Haidar said at a meeting with Konstantin Kosachyov, the chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Federation Council, the upper house. The eighth meeting on Syria will be held in Kazakhstan’s capital on December 21-22. Previous talks involved Russia, Iran and Turkey, as the Syrian ceasefire guarantors, as well as the Syrian government and the armed opposition. Representatives of the UN, the US and Jordan were also present.