Negotiations on Syria Begin in Astana

The international meeting will be held for two days from March 14th to 15th.

Technical issues

A working group is planned to be established for exchanging prisoners, discussing the situation in reconciled areas, and working through the de-mining of humanitarian facilities, including those protected by UNESCO. For today, preliminary consultations are planned, and tomorrow the plenary session of the meeting will take place.

The participants

According to the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, delegations from Russia, the government of Syria, and the representative of the UN delegation, Milos Strugar, (representative of the UN forces in Southern Lebanon) have arrived in Astana to participate in the talks on Syria. The Russian delegation is headed by the president's special representative for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, and the delegation of the Syrian government is led by Syria's permanent representative to the UN, Bashar Jaafari.

Kazakhstan’s role

The mediation and peacekeeping mission of Kazakhstan is very effective. Although the West deliberately keeps silent on Kazakhstan's initiatives, they can serve as a foundation for further regional balance of power, and also gently promote the Eurasian vector of integration.

It should be recalled that President Nursultan Nazarbayev personally took an active part in the normalization of Russian-Turkish relations after the incident with the downed Russian aircraft in November 2015.