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Turkey continues to freeze Kurds out of Syria peace talks

Syria peace talks continue in the Kazakh capital, with regional heavyweights battling it out over who will have a spot at the negotiating table.
Foreign Ministers, Sergei Lavrov (C) of Russia, Mevlut Cavusoglu (L) of Turkey and Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, attend the international meeting on Syria in Astana, Kazakhstan March 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov - UP1EE3G0MJ01P

Senior officials from Turkey, Iran and Russia are expected to gather in the Kazakh capital of Nur Sultan tomorrow for the latest round of Syria peace talks sponsored by the regional heavyweights.

UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen is expected to take part in the talks in the Kazakh capital, formerly known as Astana, after meeting in Geneva with the United States’ Syria envoy James Jeffrey. The veteran US diplomat is seeking to revive UN-sponsored peace talks to end the eight-year conflict. Critics view the effort as a bid to place a US imprimatur on Syria’s post-war future. They argue it's doomed because of the Donald Trump administration’s current policy of strangling the regime through sanctions, while demanding a full withdrawal of Iranian forces as a prerequisite for easing these. The Geneva talks need consensus between all the main stakeholders in Syria, who — with the exception of the United States — have been building just that through the Astana track, which was launched in 2017.

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