Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have arrived in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Vladimir Putin that are expected to focus on a political settlement for postwar Syria.

The mini-summit of the three countries – which this year helped broker a truce between Syrian government troops and the opposition in several areas – comes two days after Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, visited the Russian president in Sochi. Russia, which holds a military advantage in Syria, appears to want to bypass the UN process and focus on diplomatic efforts with the other regional guarantors to end the six-year war. Iran and Russia have been Assad’s main backers, while Turkey supports the Syrian opposition.

The Kremlin said Putin had assured the Iranian and Turkish leaders before the Assad meeting that Russia would “work with the Syrian leadership” to make sure any agreements that could be reached on Wednesday between Russia, Iran and Turkey “would be viable”.(theguardian)…[+]