ASTANA, Kazakhstan — The Kazakh capital of Astana, a city of less than 1 million people, is set to begin hosting peace talks on Monday regarding Syria's nearly six-year civil war that has killed nearly half-a-million people. In the discussions, Russia, Turkey and Iran will attempt to broker peace between Bashar al-Assad's government and opposition groups.
The Russian, Turkish, and Iranian delegations had already arrived, Kazakhstan's foreign ministry told the Russian news agency, TASS, on Saturday.
"By now, the delegations of Russia, Turkey and Iran have arrived," the ministry’s spokesman Anuar Zhainakov said, noting that later at night "United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura and members of the Syrian opposition’s delegation are expected."
The Russian delegation met with Syrian opposition groups on Friday regarding the structure, goal and agenda of the talks, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
"The opposition delegation stressed its respect and observation of the cease-fire and detailed the breaches of the cease-fire perpetrated by the Assad regime and Iranian militias," Anadolu reported the statement read.
Mistura will also lead UN peace talks in Geneva regarding Syria on Feb. 8, after three previous UN negotiations for a ceasefire have failed.
Mohammed Alloush of Jaish al-Islam will lead a military delegation of about eight people, who will be backed by nine legal and political advisors from the opposition's High Negotiations Committee umbrella group, Al-Monitor reported.
Ahrar al-Sham, a key rebel group, said it wouldn't attend because of claims of Russia breaking its December 2016 ceasefire agreement.
The Syrian government will be represented by its UN ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari.
Some representatives will be in Astana, but aren't formally a part of negotiations, including the United States, whose ambassador to Kazakhstan will observe talks.
Ibrahim Biro, head of the Kurdish National Council (KNC or ENKS), Abdulhakim Bashar, deputy president of the Syrian National Council, and Darwesh Mirkan, as a consultant, have been fingered by Ankara to be in Astana, but it was unclear if they would directly participate in talks.
Assad was asked on Friday about his expectations of the talks.
"It’s not clear yet whether this meeting is going to be about any political dialogue, because it’s not clear who’s going to participate in it," the Syrian news agency SANA reported that Assad told the Japanese TBS TV channel in Damascus.
Assad summarized that "terrorist groups," referring to rebels, need to disarm.
"So far, it’s about talking between the government and the terrorist groups in order to make ceasefire and to allow those terrorist groups to join the reconciliations in Syria, which means giving up your armaments and having amnesty from the government," he said. "This is the only thing that we can expect in the meantime."
The Syrian Center for Policy Research reported in last February that 11.5 percent Syrians have been killed or wounded since the conflict began in 2011, and 470,000 people have died, directly or indirectly.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released in last September, 4.8 million Syrians have fled the country and 6.6 million are internally displaced.
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via Defense News
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