Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri held talks on Tuesday with Russian officials on the return of Syrian refugees back to their homeland. "(Hariri) is looking forward to the roadmap prepared by the Russian Defense Ministry, hoping that coordination with the US administration, the United Nations and other concerned parties will form a serious effort to address the displacement crisis," his office said after the talks at the Russian embassy in Beirut. Lebanon hoped the Kremlins initiative would tackle what it called a "displacement crisis", it added. Russia last week said it had set up the Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees to help hundreds of thousands of refugees return home from abroad. The UN refugee agency UNHCR says there are about a million Syrians in Lebanon, around a quarter of its population. The Lebanese government puts the number at 1.5 million. Later this week Russian President Vladimir Putin will send a special representative to Beirut alongside the deputy foreign minister and a defense ministry official to continue talks, Hariris office said. Syrias war has killed an estimated half a million people, driven some 5.6 million people out of the country and displaced around 6.6 million within it. As the Syrian regime, backed by Iran and Russia, has recovered more territory, some Lebanese officials have stepped up calls for refugees to leave for parts of Syria where violence died down. UN officials and foreign donor states to Lebanon have said conditions for returns are not yet fulfilled in Syria, but in recent weeks Lebanese authorities have facilitated the return of hundreds of Syrians from the Lebanese border region of Arsal. One such group of hundreds departed for Syria on Monday. “The voluntary repatriation of around 850 Syrian refugees started” on Monday morning, Lebanons state news agency NNA reported. A Lebanese official source told Asharq Al-Awsat Monday that Lebanon remains committed to finding a comprehensive settlement to the refugee crisis, stressing that there was no sustainable solution except through a “voluntary, complete, comprehensive and safe return of the displaced Syrians.” Lebanon “will provide all means to achieve a full, dignified and safe return, and will guarantee all means to make it successful,” the sources noted.