Astana peace talks on Syria meeting to be held in early August – Moscow

The high-level Astana peace talks meeting on Syria will be held in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan at the beginning of August, followed by a summit in Turkey, Russian special presidential envoy for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov, said on Wednesday.

Representatives of Lebanon and Iraq will take part for the first time as observers, in the same status as Jordan, said Bogdanov, who is also the deputy foreign minister. “The Astana peace talks summit in Turkey will be held after the Nur-Sultan meeting.”

Speaking on the situation in the Idlib zone, “swarmed by tens of thousands of terrorists,” the diplomat said that the key task is to eliminate their presence from the Syrian territory, TASS reports.

Russia expects that the formation of the Syrian constitutional committee will be sped up after the visit of UN Secretary General’s special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen to Damascus, Bogdanov said.