Russia calls for Syria polls

25 October 2015 08:27 am

Russia has called for elections in Syria as part of a political solution to the conflict, and the top diplomats from Moscow and Washington on Saturday discussed the organization of a political process in the war-torn country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state television Rossiya 1 that "foreign players" can't decide anything for the Syrian people.

"We have to make them choose their own process for how their country should live on ... this work should be done in preparation for elections, both parliamentary and presidential," Lavrov said in the interview broadcast a day after he met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna to discuss the Syrian conflict.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Kerry spoke via phone Saturday to discuss the problems of organizing the political process between the Syrian government and the opposition, state news agency TASS reported. (DPA)