New round of Astana talks to be held in mid-December, Kazakh Foreign Ministry says

Nur-Sultan, SANA- Kazakhstan will host the next round of talks within Astana format on Syria in Nur-Sultan in mid-December, Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi announced on Thursday. “The guarantor countries have asked us to organize the next round of the Astana process. Its dates are still under consideration, it will be around mid-December,” Tileuberdi was quoted by TASS Agency as saying. “We are currently trying to determine [the level of the talks], deputy foreign ministers usually represent the guarantor countries,” Tileuberdi added. The top diplomat pointed out that the meeting would bring together the Syrian parties and the guarantor states of the Astana process (Russia, Turkey and Iran), as well as the invited observers. The Astana meetings began in the Kazakh capital at the beginning of 2017, and 16 meetings have been held, one of them in the Russian city of Sochi, and all of the meetings affirmed the firm commitment to preserving Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and continuing the war on terrorist organizations in it till eradicating them.