Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says the temporary ceasefire in Syria will be an important step towards the political resolution of the ongoing unrest in the Arab country.
In a Thursday telephone conversation with UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, the Iranian minister hailed his efforts to declare the truce, which came into effect on Friday morning and will continue until the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha on Monday.
Brahimi, for his part, expressed hope that all sides would completely observe the truce to prepare the ground for establishing sustainable peace and stability in the country.
Brahimi had earlier proposed the truce to take place between the Syrian forces and insurgents fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the holidays.
The Syrian government had announced that it would support the proposed ceasefire only if the Western countries and their regional allies stopped supporting and financing the insurgents.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says ‘outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists’ are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence, while the opposition accuses security forces of being behind the killings.
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed insurgents are foreign nationals.
