Astana's Syrian peace conference important step to success of Geneva talks - expert

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Deputy director of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (KazISS) Sanat Koshkumbayev believes that Kazakhstan has extensive experience in mediation and holding talks between conflicting parties and that experience will help it host the Syrian peace talks, Kazinform correspondent reports.

"Kazakhstan has already hosted such talks, for instance on the Iranian nuclear program. It also exerted efforts to settle the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Additionally, our country attempted to settle the Ukrainian crisis suggesting Astana as the venue for negotiations in 2015," Koshkumbayev told Kazinform correspondent.

The expert noted that it is hard to predict the outcome of the Syrian peace negotiations. "We cannot predict whether the parties to the conflict will reach any agreements. It is important for Kazakhstan that the parties do it through diplomatic and political efforts," he said.

Koshkumbayev stressed that Kairat Abdrakhmanov was right when he said that the Astana peace conference is an important step towards the Geneva talks. "If the parties [to the Syrian conflict] achieve certain agreements at our platform, it can safely be said that the Astana meeting will precede success or failure of the Geneva talks," said the expert adding that the Astana peace conference is Kazakhstan's goodwill gesture.

Recall that President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev fully supported the initiative of Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan to hold the meeting of the conflicting parties to the Syrian conflict in Astana.