Russia has dismissed suggestions it was planning to offer political asylum to Syrian President Bashar al Assad and said two prominent opposition leaders were coming to Moscow for talks next week.
"It [the rumour of Russia granting asylum to Mr Assad] is either an attempt to mislead serious people dealing with foreign policy or a lack of understanding of Russia's position," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council agreed at talks last week that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the bloodshed there but left open the question of what part Mr Assad might play.
Mr Lavrov said the issue of political asylum for Mr Assad first came up during talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Berlin last month, adding that it was first raised by the German side.
Mr Lavrov told a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle: "Our delegation took it as a joke and responded also with a joke: Why don't you, Germans, take Mr Assad if he wants to go somewhere?"
He also said Abdelbasset Sida, the new leader of the main Syrian opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Council, and prominent opposition activist Michel Kilo would visit Moscow for talks next week.
Meanwhile, Iraq said it has "solid information" al Qaeda militants are crossing from Iraq into Syria to carry out attacks and has sent reinforcements to the border, the foreign minister said yesterday.
Hoshiyar Zebari said al Qaeda "operational officers" appeared to be moving through old smuggling routes carrying weapons.
"We have solid information and intelligence that members of al Qaeda terrorist networks have gone in the other direction, to Syria, to help, to liaise, to carry out terrorist attacks," he claimed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article