Russia to host Syria talks in Sochi in January
GENEVA/ASTANA: UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said Syria talks in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday had agreed on a “working group” for the release of detainees, which he said was a commendable first step toward an arrangement between the warring sides.
Russia’s plan to convene a Syrian “congress of national dialogue” in Sochi next month should be assessed by its ability to contribute to and support the UN-led Geneva talks on ending the war in Syria,” Mistura’s office said in a statement.
In Astana, major powerbrokers agreed on Friday to hold the peace congress in Russia’s Black Sea resort in late January in a bid to speed up a political settlement for the war-torn country.
Sochi will host a “congress of national dialogue on Syria” on Jan. 29 and 30, said a joint statement released after two days of talks spearheaded by Russia and Iran — both key backers of Syrian regime — and the Syrian opposition-aligned Turkey.
The “Congress of National Dialogue” will see “the participation of all segments of Syrian society,” said the statement released in the Kazakh capital Astana.
“To this end three guarantors will hold a special preparation meeting in Sochi before the congress on 19-20 January,” it added, referring to Russia, Turkey and Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been hoping to convert Moscow’s game-changing military intervention in Syria into a political settlement on his terms.
In November, he convened the leaders of Turkey and Iran in Sochi to discuss the plan for the peace conference.
While both Russian officials and Syria’s Bashar Assad have spoken enthusiastically of the plan, opposition representatives have been wary and the UN has yet to firmly endorse it.
Mistura held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on Thursday.
Representatives of the opposition have expressed fears the Sochi congress could prove a distraction from the UN negotiations.
The Astana talks have run in parallel to the negotiations taking place in Geneva with the backing of the UN, but neither set of talks have borne much fruit.
Since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, several diplomatic attempts to halt the conflict have stumbled, mainly over Assad’s future.
A previous attempt to convene the Sochi congress in November failed following a lack of agreement among prospective participants.
Turkey has said it will be opposed to any talks involving the Kurdish YPG militia of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). The Kremlin has however insisted that Turkey’s concerns would not stand in the way of the future peace conference.
Putin, who last week ordered the partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, discussed the peace process with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the phone on Friday.
Syria was also on the agenda as Putin spoke by telephone Thursday with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.
A fragile cease-fire brokered at the end of last year by Moscow and Ankara has been bolstered somewhat by the negotiations in Astana. The talks there have focussed on implementing four de-escalation zones to stem fighting between government and opposition forces, among other issues.
But both Damascus and the opposition factions have regularly accused one another of violating the cease-fire the zones were intended to bolster.