The current round of the Astana peace talks for Syria will see Kurdish delegates making strong arguments for the federalization of Syria. Many have remarked that Syrian Kurds have actually engaged in a climb-down since the secessionist movement of Iraqi Kurds ended up being a spectacular failure which saw Iraq re-establish control over Kirkuk and other areas illegally occupied by Kurdish militants in recent years.
Feeling somewhat buoyant after his substantial gamble backing Qatar in the dispute in the Gulf and realising that many other local and regional powers have done the same, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken a bold step and stated that Saudi Arabia and the United States should join the Astana Peace Process.
This can be interpreted in several ways.
1. Watering Down The Existing Astana Memorandum
With a mosque’s minaret in the foreground, a United States Air Force cargo plane takes off from the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, where coalition forces launch attacks inside of Syria, July 30, 2015.
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.
Turkish President Erdogan has held a joint press conference with President Putin in Sochi where the often difficult but important relations between the two countries was minimised in a generally positive meeting.
Putin restricted his opening remarks to generally non-confrontational matters including trade and tourism.
The minister’s statement, however, sounds a little bit strange, since throughout the Syrian conflict, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have been providing comprehensive assistance to Islamic State terrorists, supplying weapons, equipment, and mercenaries to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There is undeniable evidence of these “acts of good will” on behalf of Saudi Arabia.
This article was originally published at Quemado Institute
As of March 2017, it will be exactly six years since the beginning of the conflict in Syria. Some journalists have made unfavorable forecasts, wondering about the very possibility of reconciliation. Complicated by foreign intervention on the part of Israel, the war in Lebanon, for example, continued for about 15 years.
