Next quartet meeting on Syria to take place in New York

The first of “Quartet Summit” of a group consisting of Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia was held in Cairo on Monday. Second round of the talks of the regional contact group on Syria will take place in New York on September 24 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings. The Cairo meeting brought foreign ministers from the four-nation "Islamic Quartet" together for the first time for dialogue on Syria, in an initiative launched by Egypt's new Islamist president Mohammed Morsi. The grouping, proposed by Morsi last month, brings together three supporters of the Syrian rebellion -Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt- with the Syrian regime's regional ally, Iran. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, who did not participate in the meeting in Cairo, is expected to attend to the next meeting. Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi proposed in the meeting that these countries should send observers to Syria. “Participation of countries in the region is significant to solve the problem. With this meeting, three important powers of the region have come together for the first time,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby and U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi also attended to the meeting.