MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th November, 2018) The guarantor states of the ceasefire in Syria will meet in the Kazakh capital for the eleventh round of the peace talks on November 28-29, focusing on forming a constitutional committee, the situation in Idlib and the exchange of the detainees, along with the issue of returning refugees and the post-conflict restoration of the country.
The meeting on Syrian settlement will bring together the guarantors of the Syrian ceasefire, Russia, Turkey and Iran, delegations representing Damascus and the country's armed opposition, with Jordan as an observer.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who has been working as the special envoy for the crisis-torn country since 2014, but announced he would leave the post in the end of November, did not yet confirm his presence at the meeting.
FORMING THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMMITTEE
The formation of Syria's constitutional committee is expected to be one of the main issues on the agenda of the upcoming Astana-11 talks.
The creation of the committee, which is expected to draft Syria's new constitution, was agreed upon during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in the Russian resort city of Sochi in late January. The committee will consist of three groups representing the Syrian government, opposition, and women, experts and leaders of various tribes living in Syria.
The composition of the third part of the body, the so-called middle third list, set to comprise civil society representatives, has been a stumbling rock in the negotiations. Damascus has objected to the list of 50 Names that was prepared and proposed by the United Nations. After his visit to the Syrian capital on Friday, de Mistura said that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem did not accept the role of the United Nations in selecting the middle third candidates.
The upcoming Astana talks can help advance the drafting of the remaining list of the constitutional committee members, which remains the last obstacle for the launch of the body.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would "actively participate" in creation of the constitutional committee of Syria which he hoped would be agreed on by the end of the year.
Putin stressed that such a committee should be recognized as legitimate by all parties in Syria and be respected in order to be "be able to prepare and implement a mature constitutional reform that will strengthen Syrian statehood and unite Syrian society." He added that "the work on forming a committee must be serious, painstaking, and it needs to be done fundamentally."
Russia's Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov also warned against a rush in forming the constitution committee, saying it was "much more important to have a functional and mutually acceptable constitutional committee than to have an artificial deadline in order to ruin the Astana process."
EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS AND REFUGEE ISSUE
The Kazakh Foreign Ministry confirmed that a working group on prisoner exchanges will meet for a regular, sixth session during the upcoming Astana talks.
On Saturday, Damascus and the Syrian armed opposition have already exchanged hostages as part of implementation of the agreements reached during the talks in Astana. The hostages swap had been organized with the participation of representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry in the working group operating under the Astana format of the Syrian reconciliation talks. Representatives of Turkey, Iran as well as the Syrian Arab Red Crescent also took part in the event, which became a pilot project of prisoner exchange between Damascus and the armed opposition.
According to the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, Russia, Turkey and Iran are also planning to discuss the possibility of holding an international conference devoted to Syrian refugees during the consultations in Astana. According to the ministry, the three countries intend to start cooperating with major international humanitarian organizations.
"The plan of the guarantor countries is to establish close cooperation with such authoritative international organizations as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross. As you understand, in this case, we are talking about humanitarian issues, first of all, about issues related to refugees," Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said last week.
The representatives of the ICRC invited to take part in Astana-11 format, along with the representatives of the UN high commissioner on refugees office, confirmed their presence to Sputnik "as an observer and technical adviser."
Syrian refugee repatriation has become one of the priorities for the Syrian government as most of the heavy fighting in Syria is now over. In late October, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said that Russia was working to organize an international conference dedicated to Syrian repatriation and urged other countries to join the humanitarian mission in Syria.
ONLY EFFECTIVE FORMAT FOR SYRIA PEACE PROCESS
Being the platform where the representatives of Damascus and the armed opposition sat together at the negotiations table for the first time, Astana remains the main format for the Syrian peace settlement.
"The Astana process was the first step to wake up the UN process, which was dormant ... Then we managed to convene the Sochi congress on the Syrian national dialogue which decided to create a constitutional committee. Before that nobody was lifting a figure," the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif last week called the Astana-based peace talks the only format that brought tangible results in Syria. "I think the only policy that has worked in Syria is the Astana process ... The only countries that could prevent a disaster in Idlib were Iran, Turkey and Russia," Zarif said.
The Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal, who represents the Turkey delegation at the talks, said that the importance of this format of the talks which enabled the UN-mediated Geneva talks between the government and the opposition, cannot be diminished.
The US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey, who will not take part in Astana-11 meeting, said Washington would welcome the results if the meeting is effective. "We welcomed the Istanbul summit at the end of last month with the Russian president and his French, German, and Turkish colleagues. And if Astana can be as productive as the Istanbul summit then we'll be pleased," Jeffrey said.
The head of the opposition delegation to the November 28-29 consultations, Ahmed Tomah, also said the Astana consultations are currently the only effective platform for resolving the Syrian conflict.
