The 17th regular Meeting on Syria in the Astana Format started activities on Tuesday morning in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, and it will last for two days, SANA news agency reported.
The delegations of the guarantor states of the Astana process, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey, participate in the meeting, in addition to delegations representing the Syrian government and the foreign-backed opposition.
The Russian delegation is headed by the Special Envoy of the President of the Russian Federation Alexander Lavrentiev, and the Iranian delegation is headed by Senior Assistant to Iranian Foreign Minister for Special Political Affairs Ali Asghar Khaji. Meanwhile, the Turkish delegation is headed by Selçuk Ünal, Director General for Bilateral Political Relations at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as representatives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense.
The delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic, headed by Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minister Ayman Sousan, held a meeting with the Russian delegation.
Sousan underlined the importance of “exerting maximum pressure on the Turkish regime to compel it to implement the outputs of the Astana process and the understandings with the Russian side, and to put an end to the illegitimate Turkish presence in Syria,” SANA reported.
For his part, Lavrentiev reiterated Russia’s rejection of “everything that would prejudice the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria,” underlining the importance of joint action to confront the policies of some Western countries that seek to exploit the humanitarian situation, including the continuation of imposing coercive measures to serve their agendas.
Meanwhile, the Russian delegation also met with the Iranian delegation, with talks dealing with coordinating the two delegations’ stances regarding the situation in Syria and discussing the points on the meeting’s agenda, according to SANA.
Delegations from Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq also participate as observers at the ambassadorial level, along with the United Nations delegation headed by Deputy Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Syria Khawla Matar and a delegation of the so-called “armed opposition”.
The last meeting of the Astana format was held in Nur-Sultan on the seventh and eighth of last July. So far, sixteen meetings of the Astana Format have been held, two of which took place in the Russian resort of Sochi overlooking the Black Sea, and all of them have affirmed strong commitment to Syria’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.
Source: Agencies
