President: Astana evenly spaced from all parties to Syrian conflict

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Nursultan Nazarbayev says Astana has been chosen as the venue of the International Meeting on Syrian settlement because it is evenly spaced from all parties to the conflict.

"We offered the conflicting parties - the Syrian opposition and the government as well as guarantor countries, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey - an opportunity to meet. A number of such meetings were held at their request. In fact, all those people who didn't attend the Geneva meeting, especially the opposition, participated in the Astana meetings. We figured out that Kazakhstan is evenly spaced from all parties to the conflict and suggested creating necessary conditions for such negotiations. It is impossible to solve the problem without joint efforts from the countries that are interested in defeating the ISIS and fighting terrorism," the Kazakh leader said in an exclusive interview with MIR TV Channel.

During the interview Nursultan Nazarbayev also shared his thoughts on the recent terror attack in Saint Petersburg and the issues of similarity between the CSTO and NATO.