Moscow, Oct 24, IRNA – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underlined Iran's role in the resolving the ongoing crisis in Syria, and said that the international efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis without Iran's presence will be futile.

'The international efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis without Iran's participation is useless,' Russian state TV quoted Lavrov as saying on Saturday.

The Russian foreign minister pointed to the quadrilateral meeting between the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in Vienna on Friday aiming to resolve the Syrian crisis, and said, 'We agreed with holding this meeting to resolve the Syrian crisis under such framework and we meantime informed our allies that the efforts for creating such groups in a bid to support the political process of resolving the Syrian crisis is futile and useless.'

'We believe that under such conditions, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and the UAE should be participated in the negotiations on the Syrian issue,' Lavrov added.

Two conferences were previously held in an attempt to resolve the Syrian crisis in the Swiss city of Geneva, one in 2012 and the other in 2014; however, both events ended in failure amid the absence of Iran.

'When we agreed to this format of negotiations on Syria, we said we were convinced that the idea to set up a circle of support for a Syria settlement without Iran had no prospects,' Lavrov said.

Iran was not invited to the first one, and while the country primarily received an invitation to take part in the second Geneva conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later rescinded the invitation under pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition.

By IRNA