FM meeting of Astana process kicked off
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdrakhmanov delivered a welcome speech on behalf of the hosting party. The Minister reminded that it was one year ago that the Astana process was launched and summed up its work.
"As you know one year ago Presidents of Russia and Turkey proposed Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to hold peacemaking talks between the Syrian Government and representatives of armed opposition. Being convinced that the only alternative to war is peace and the only way to peace is a dialogue, Kazakhstan gave consent and proposed Astana as a platform to support the inter-syrian talks under the UN aegis. There are certain obstacles on the way to peace, but the eight rounds of negotiations which took place in Astana allowed to put an end to the dead-end situation in the negotiation process. This initiative had the conflicting parties sit at the common negotiation table in 2017," he noted.
Kairat Abdrakhmanov noted that in this platform there were taken the first significant steps on confidence building measures between the Syrian government and the armed opposition.
"Since the start of the negotiation process there have been created four de-escalation zones and mechanism of monitoring of cease-fire regime. They helped to provide more humanitarian aid. These and other achievements of the Astana process cannot be but taken into account. This process also allowed to create the required conditions which will stop the military actions in the long run," said the Minister.
Despite difficulties, according to Kairat Abdrakhmanov, the Astana process proved its effectiveness and relevance as a platform where all parties to the conflict can exchange opinions and, the most importantly, conduct negotiations and discuss certain actions.
"We should remember that the Astana process is a part of the UN initiative and aims at integration with the Geneva process. Any agreement made in Astana, unquestionably, adds to the Geneva process and gives an additional impulse to political regulation of the Syrian conflict," he added.
The Kazakh Minister considers that the first foreign ministerial level meeting among Iran, Russia and Turkey which is being held now in Astana, will help define three-party interaction in the near future and discuss the results achieved within the first year of cooperation on Syrian settlement during the time of joint work.
"We also set a high value on the meeting of the working group for liberation of captives, delivery of the dead bodies and search of the missing. We are certain that the work of this group will strengthen trust among the conflicting parties and will help evolve our activity in this direction,"the Minister said.