Iran ready to host meet on Syria

Tehran, April 29 (IANS) Iran is ready to host the next meeting of the quartet group on Syria set to begin in near future, the country's foreign minister Ali-Akbar Salehi has said.

Salehi, during a joint press conference with visiting Guinea- Bissau's foreign minister, here Sunday said that he had contacted his counterparts in the group -- foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- to speed up diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the Syrian crisis, Xinhua reported.

"A foreign ministerial meeting was decided to be held in near future and we voiced our preparedness to host the meeting," Salehi said.

On Saturday, Press TV reported that Syrian parliament speaker Jihad Allaham would pay a four-day official visit to Iran Monday.

In Tehran, he is set to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili and Salehi.