Moscow, Jan 12 (IANS) Russia appealed Saturday for a political transition in Syria, a day after UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held tripartite talks in Geneva on ending the nearly two-year-old crisis.
"It is necessary to secure the launch of a political transition process in Syria aimed at enshrining in law guaranteed and equal rights of all ethnic-confessional groups of this country," reported Xinhua citing Russian foreign ministry in a statement.
The ministry, however, reiterated that it remained "firmly convinced that Syria's future must be decided by the Syrians themselves, without any interference from outside and without the imposition of ready development recipes".
In line with the Geneva Communique agreed at the Action Group's meeting June 30, 2012, Russia had "positively responded to the initiative of continuing consultations in this format," the statement said.
"At the same time, we are convinced that priority should be given to immediately stopping any violence and bloodshed and rendering humanitarian aid to the Syrians, including internally displaced persons and refugees," it said.
After the Geneva meeting, which drew together Brahimi, Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and US Undersecretary of State William Burns, the Russian minister met a delegation of the Syrian opposition Democratic Forum, the Interfax reported.
The two sides discussed the situation and looked at the possibility of launching a broad national dialogue in accordance with the Geneva Communique.
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