The UN Security Council has met for an extraordinary ministerial-level meeting on Middle Eastern conflicts, on the same day that Russia announced it had conducted its first air strikes in Syria.

In opening the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed the Council that at the request of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia had carried out air strikes aimed at dismantling the terrorist organization, ISIL.

Veronica Reeves says that while the debate in the Security Council was tabled as a broad discussion on violence in region, the conflict in Syria took centre stage.

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