Lavrov explained why Astana was chosen to host Intra-Syrian peace talks

Answering journalists’ questions, Lavrov explained why namely Astana had been chosen as a host country of the Syria peace talks.

“From the very beginning of the efforts on regulation of the Syrian crisis, Kazakhstan has strived to contribute to this problem’s resolution. At the moment of elaboration of the framework for Intra-Syrian talks,  there was a task to ensure inclusiveness of the process, to enable both the governmental officials and opposition groups to join the event,” Lavrov said.

According to Lavrov, opposition groups in Syria were diffused across the country. There was a task to gather them together and initiate a meeting with the government. Some countries have already launched measures in this area.

“Saudi Arabia conducted a huge work on unifying with opposition and the so-called Riyadh group appeared. Our Egyptian colleagues did the same work and a Cairo group was established. There is also Moscow group of opposition members. Our Kazakhstani friends contributed namely to the development of these initiatives and gathered together the opposition members who were ready to meet ‘under their umbrella’, and so the Astana group was established,” he said.

“All these groups actively participated in the first rounds of Intra-Syrian talks, which, unfortunately, were not direct and were organized in a form of contacts of the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura with some or another group in order to find out some common approaches. Unfortunately, since April, these talks have been suspended. Today, the main objective is to revive this process and to attract those representing the armed opposition and controlling the negotiations ‘on the ground’ to the talks,” he added.

In his word, this fully meets the objectives set by the UNSC to ensure presence of Syrian opposition.

“Up to now, the armed opposition was not involved in this process,” he highlighted and added that with Iran’s support, Russia and Turkey attempted to launch the talks between the Government and armed troops, which ended with signing a ceasefire agreement.

“From the very beginning of these efforts, all the participants of these talks called Astana as the most suitable place for the meeting. There is every reason to believe that Astana’s potential and capability of gently and correctly offering its services are more than ever relevant now,” the Russian Minister stressed.

“We expect that due to this, the armed opposition will be involved in the Intra-Syrian negotiations,” he concluded.