Nur-Sultan to host international talks on Syria on July 7-8

Kazakhstan will once again host international high-level talks on Syria. They are scheduled for July 7 and 8 of this year. This will be the 16th meeting on Syria within the Astana Process and it will be held with the participation of the delegations of the guarantor states. These include Iran, Russia and Turkey, as well as the Syrian government and the Syrian armed opposition groups. Representatives of the UN, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have been invited to attend the meeting as observers.

The preliminary agenda includes the following items – situation on the ground in Syria, including the socio-economic and sanitary-epidemiological issues; international humanitarian assistance to Syria; prospects of the resumption of the work of the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva; confidence-building measures including prisoners exchange, hostage release and search for the missing persons.

The agenda of the first day of the talks includes bilateral and trilateral consultations of the guarantor states, their negotiations with the Syrian parties and contacts with the observers’ delegations. The second day will continue the discussions and hold a plenary session. In addition, the next meeting of the Working Group on Forcibly Detained Persons is scheduled to take place during the 16th round of the Astana talks. Representatives of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross are expected to attend.

 

Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova

Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova