Iranian FM arrives in Damascus for talks with officials

DAMASCUS - Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi arrived on Wednesday in Syria's capital of Damascus, where he will meet with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moallem and President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran, the main regional patron of Syria, is a member of the newly-established quartet committee, which also groups Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.

The formation of the quartet group was called for by the new Islamist Egyptian leader Mohammad Morsi with the aim of handling the Syrian issue in a peaceful way. The committee held its first meeting Monday at the level of foreign ministers in Egypt's capital, Cairo.

After Monday's meeting, Salehi stressed at a press conference that the Syrian crisis should be solved from within Syria, a way that he dubbed a "Syrian-Syrian solution", adding that "we cannot seek to impose a solution forcefully on Syria".

He, however, proposed that observers from the four countries be dispatched to the crisis-hit country.

The meeting, however, was marked with the absence of Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who also didn't send a representative to fill his country's void. Egyptian presidential spokesman Yasser Ali alleged reason of the absence was "health issues" while Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr reportedly said that Faisal's absence was due to previously arranged engagements.

The Saudi kingdom has emerged as fervent-outspoken critic of Assad and a staunch backer to the armed opposition fighters in Syria amid reports that it has been aiding the armed rebels on ground with funds and weapons with the help of Turkey, which hosts and harbors the leadership of the so-called rebel Free Syrian Army.

Syrian Foreign Ministry has recently accused Turkey of facilitating the flow of armed insurgents, including Jihadists and members of al-Qaida terror network, to Syria through its terrain.

It's not clear, though, to what extent the new quartet group can help to pull Syria out of the bloody quagmire, with the group's members, except for Iran, overtly backing the anti-Assad movement in Syria.

Egypt's Morsi has recently called on the Syrian leadership to step down and also urged the world countries to embrace the Syrian opposition to achieve their goals.

The next meeting for the quartet committee will be held in New York on Sept 25 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.