Russia and Iran are suddenly impotent as Turkey takes role of most influential external power

As Celebratory gunfire was heard across much of Syria, the diplomatic big guns of Iran and Russia, in Doha to attend a major dialogue forum, fell silent, rendered powerless and irrelevant by events in Damascus.

- Patrick Wintour

Only 12 hours earlier the key external powers - Russia and Iran along with Turkey - had met five Arab states on the sidelines of the forum to issue a joint statement appealing for an end to military operations, preservation of Syria's territorial integrity and consultations on a political solution between Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition. It was a last attempt to retain a semblance of control over events.

Russian representatives reported that Assad was inflexible, refusing to accept reality or the necessity of dialogue with Turkey, the country sponsoring the military forces threatening the capital. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, looked pained and distracted.

Six hours after the weary diplomats left the meeting, they woke to the news that Assad had fallen. Rarely have so many diplomats been rendered so irrelevant so quickly.

Earlier at the summit on Saturday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had been questioned on stage about Syria's future, an increasingly uncomfortable encounter as he was asked to explain Russia's role in the country over the past decade.