Astana

The US State Department has confirmed that Sergey Lavrov and Rex Tillerson will hold meetings in Washington D.C. between the 9th and 11th of May.
Talks will cover a wide range of issues but primarily will involve Syria.
This comes after US Defence Secretary James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis said that, “the devil is in the details”, when asked about his opinion on the safe zones established last week by the Astana Group which includes Russia, Iran and Turkey.
The Syrian government and the United Nations both support the Memorandum.

The Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman has threatened that if Saudi Arabia comes to blows with Iran, the Wahhabi Kingdom will go to war inside Iran.
The Saudi Prince who is next in line for the throne said,

“We will not wait until the fight is inside Saudi Arabia and we will work so that the battle is on their side, inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia”.

The Kurds have released a number of statements with regards to the Astana Memorandum that appear to contradict each other. On the one hand, they referred to the decree calling for safe zones in Syria a ‘crime’, claiming that it would lead to sectarian partition and federalisation. But isn’t partition indeed what the Kurds – or at least many of them want and always wanted? In this instance, they share the same objective as the terrorist factions: to divide and conquer albeit to a much smaller degree and for vastly different reasons.

The introduction of “de-escalation” zones in Syria and specifying remarks by Russia’s chief diplomat to the Astana talks Aleksander Lavrentiev have led to the conclusion that Russia has imposed a “no-fly” zone against the US in Syria, but the reality of the matter is much more nuanced than that.

Russia’s lead negotiator at the Astana Peace Talks, Alexander Levrentyev has confirmed that US coalition planes will be banned from flying over the Syrian safe-zones established in a key Memorandum at the Astana Peace talks.
READ MORE: 5 reasons the Astana ‘safe zone’ Memorandum is good for Russia and Syria

The controversial move has sparked a great deal of debate, some measured and some outlandishly suggesting that Russia ‘sold out’ its Syrian partner.
Here are the key reasons why it was a masterful geo-political move by Russia that will help keep Syria safe, stable and sovereign.
1. It Simply Reinforces Existing Realities 
Currently, Syria is operating under a Russian authored ceasefire which the UN Security unanimously passed late last year. Even Obama’s United States didn’t dare veto the Russian resolution.

The joint Russian-Iranian-Turkish delegation at the Astana Peace Talks agreed to form four ‘safe zones’ also known as de-escalation zones in Syria in order to help stabilise the fragile Russian authored Syrian ceasefire agreement.

A day prior to the resumption of the Astana Peace Talks on Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have held a phone call to discuss each side’s position on Syria and other pressing matters. America has no official role in Astana, but will be keenly interested in the results of this round of discussions.

Of the many pundits analysing the Turkish referendum vote, the most absurd, even by the standards of pro-Erdogan propagandists, comes from someone called Patrick Cockburn writing in Britain’s Independent newspaper.

Syria’s main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) leader Nasr al-Hariri, center, arrives for a meeting of Intra Syria peace talks at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, on Thursday, March 2, 2017. (Philippe Desmazes/Keystone via AP, Pool)
After two relatively productive rounds of peace talks in Astana had many upbeat about the possibility of finally negotiating a settlement to the Syrian Civil War, the third round of talks began today and appear to be dead in the water, with no rebels in attendance.