The 20th round of the Astana peace talks kicked off in the Kazakh capital Astana today with normalization between Turkey and Syria high on the agenda.
However, there were few signs of progress, as Ayman Sousan, Syria’s assistant foreign minister, repeated his president's line that ties with Turkey could not be mended until Ankara fully withdraws its forces from large swathes of northeast Syria that amount to nine percent of the country’s total land mass.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is feeling buoyed by his recent reintegration into the Arab League and is apparently in no mood for compromise, despite pressure from the Kremlin to shake hands with Ankara — and “least of all on Turkey’s terms,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. But he is also desperately in need of cash, and Gulf nations, led by Saudi Arabia, want Assad to lessen his dependence on Iran. Peace with Ankara may help serve that purpose, as well as reducing Turkey’s presence in Syria over time.
Turkey was represented by its new deputy foreign minister, Burak Akcapar. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Ali-Asghar Khaji, senior assistant to Iran’s foreign minister, also took part, alongside Ahmed Touma, the head of the Saudi-backed Syrian opposition. Geir Pederson, the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, and officials from Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon came as observers.
