German Foreign Minister Says Future Of Middle East Being Decided In Astana, Sochi

MUNICH (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th February, 2020) German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Friday that the time of the United States' ubiquitous presence in conflict settlement had passed, and the fate of the middle East was now being shaped in Sochi and Astana.

"The real game changer is the fact that an era of omnipresent American global policeman is over, everyone can see that. Think of Syria, think of Afghanistan and Africa," Maas said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, adding that the future of the Middle East is no longer decided in Geneva or New York, but in the Kazakh capital of Nur Sultan (formerly Astana), and Sochi.

In May 2017, Russia, Turkey, and Iran met in what was then Astana to bring the warring parties to the Syrian conflict together in an effort to restore peace. That meeting launched the so-called Astana peace process.

In September of the following year, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, brokered an agreement in Sochi to create a demilitarized zone along the contact line between the armed opposition and government forces in Idlib.