Shoigu holds talks in Tehran on current escalation in the Middle East

The Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu announced that during his working visit to Tehran yesterday, he discussed with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Akbar Ahmadian the situation in Syria, the repercussions of the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” Ismail Haniyeh, and the situation on the Lebanese border with occupied Palestine.

RT quoted Shoigu as saying in a statement to journalists on Tuesday: “Of course, in the meeting with the new Iranian president and the Secretary of the Security Council, we discussed developments in the region, including the situation in Syria, the increasing escalation in Lebanon, as well as the recent tragic events that took place in Tehran, represented by the assassination of Haniyeh.”

On the other hand, Shoigu stated that Kiev did not respond to the terms of the settlement initiative presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin last June regarding the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. He said: “It has been almost two months since then and there has been no response.”

According to Shoigu, “it is illogical to talk about a formula such as the Geneva Conference on Ukraine and the “Zelensky Formula” and others because all these types of discussions are useless in the light of the Western countries’ efforts to exclude Russia from them, although it is the main party in this issue and its vision is likely.”

Last June, Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward an initiative for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine that stipulates an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the territories of the new Russian regions, and Kiev’s declaration of acceptance of the status of neutrality and non-alignment with any political and military bloc, abandoning the ambition to join NATO and implementing a voluntary disarmament process, and dismantling the organizational structures of Nazism.

Hamda Mustafa