Reuters  February 22, 2012

The presidents of Russia and Iran said on Wednesday that the crisis in Syria must be resolved peacefully without foreign intervention, the Kremlin said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke by telephone a day after the United States appeared to open the door to eventually arming Syrian rebels.

"The sides spoke out in favour of Syrians themselves overcoming the crisis as swiftly as possible through exclusively peaceful means, without foreign intervention," Medvedev's press service said in a statement.