(AA) – Deputy foreign ministers from Iran, Syria and Switzerland have met in Tehran to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Syria and other regional problems.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Feysal Mikdad and the head of Switzerland Humanitarian Aid Department, Manuel Bessler, attended to the meeting in the Iranian capital on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Mikdad said Switzerland was ready to cooperate with the Syrian Red Crescent, International Committee of the Red Cross and other international aid agencies to deliver medicine, food and water to Syrian refugees.
Bessler said those who wanted to send aid to Syria should coordinate with the Syrian Red Crescent and added the only way to solve the humanitarian crisis was to protect the territorial integrity of Syria and efforts towards a political solution.
Syria has been gripped by violence since the regime launched a violent crackdown in response to anti-government protests in March 2011, triggering a conflict that has left at least 210,000 dead and displaced almost half of the country’s population, according to the UN.
The ministry statement also said before the meeting Abdollahian met with Nizar Hayrullah, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iraq to discuss Yemen and regional crises, after Saudi Arabia and several Arab allies launched a military offensive against the positions of Houthi militants across the country on March 25.
Riyadh said the campaign came in response to Hadi’s appeals to “save the [Yemeni] people from the Houthi militias.”
The Houthis have attacked the offensive as being unwarranted “Saudi-American aggression.”
Some Gulf States accuse Shiite Iran of supporting the Houthi insurgency.
