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The presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey met on April 4 to preserve Syrian sovereignty [PPIO]
The three countries have positioned themselves as guarantors of the Syria peace talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana and are calling for a global commitment to ensuring a lasting ceasefire in the war-ravaged country.
The upcoming talks will focus on maintaining the territorial integrity of the country following airstrikes by the US, UK and France earlier in the month.
They will also be a follow-up to the April 4 meeting between the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey in Ankara.
In 2017, the three countries established the Astana peace talks following the Syrian Army’s liberation of the city of Aleppo.
While the Astana peace process is separate from the more inclusive UN-sponsored peace negotiations in Geneva, they have nonetheless won the support of UN agencies including UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who has attended a number of sessions.
The US has been routinely invited to the Astana talks, but has only been represented by low-level delegations.
Syrian opposition groups are participating in the talks under an umbrella coalition delegation. Groups such as Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are considered terrorist organizations by Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria and therefore not only excluded from the talks but from the current ceasefire as well.
The upcoming talks on April 28 come as French President Emmanuel Macron seeks to find common ground between the UN-sponsored Geneva talks on Syria and the Astana rounds.
The French president has said that ending the conflict in Syria required a multilateral effort.
In a press conference in Washington, Macron also said that the US, France, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had formed a contact group on the Syrian crisis.
But Macron also threw his support behind US initiatives in Syria and said: “What I am committed to doing in cooperation with Americans is to provide support to the American presence in the north of Syria and in particular east of the Euphrates river.”
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
