Kazakhstan says ready to provide platform for new Syria talks

ASTANA, May 28. /TASS/. Kazakhstan is ready to host a new round of talks aimed at ending a four-year-old conflict in Syria, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said on Thursday. "Kazakhstan is open for a second meeting in Astana, if one is needed," Idrissov told a news conference after negotiations in the Kazakh capital with members of the Syrian opposition. Idrissov stressed that the meeting, organised by Astana, "does not run counter to other international efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis". "We regard our meeting as an attempt to lend a helping hand to international efforts, first of all, within the framework of the Geneva process," he said. "We hope that a community spirit and concerted efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis will prevail and this will help to revive the Geneva process and successfully complete it," Idrissov added. Talks involving Syrian opposition figures started in Astana on Monday and lasted three days behind closed doors. Some 30 representatives of various groups attended the gathering. In a joint declaration adopted after the talks, participants called for withdrawal of all foreign forces from Syria and revival of the country's own army. They also discussed "a road map" for political settlement of the years-long conflict. Agreement was reached on humanitarian issues, including "establishment of corridors with support of such international organisations as the Red Cross and Red Crescent to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees". Syrian ambassador in Moscow Riyad Haddad told TASS on Thursday that Damascus did not want to change the Moscow format of intra-Syrian consultations. "We are making every effort - political and diplomatic - to hold ‘Moscow-3’ talks," Haddad said. "We do not want to skip over the Moscow forum and we do not want to go to Kazakhstan or somewhere else." "We have very high hopes for our Russian friends’ efforts and we are looking forward to convening ‘Moscow-3’," he said, noting, however, that no date had yet been set for the talks. In early April, Moscow hosted a second round of talks involving the Syrian government and some opposition figures in a bid to settle the continuing and bloody Middle East conflict. Read more