(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Corrected repeat
By Adib Al-Sayed
MOSCOW, Oct 29 (KUNA) -- Stakeholders of the Syrian crisis are scheduled to hold their seventh round of discussions on Monday to discuss and tackle a host of issues namely releasing prisoners and determining whereabouts of those who have been missing amid chaotic conditions throughout the troubled nation.
Kazakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement, released in Astana on Friday, the session would be dedicated for drawing up "work system" for the group charged with releasing hostages and prisoners, handing over corpses, searching for the missing, combating terrorism, demining and other issues.
The new round of discussions in Astana is significant due to planned participation of armed groups with influence on the ground, in addition to the Syrian Government, said Constantin Troyetsiev, an expert on Arab affairs at the Russian Institute of Oriental Studies, in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
"Terrorist groups, namely Al-Nusra Front (Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham) and (the so-called) Islamic State will not partake in tomorrow' talks," Troyetsiev told KUNA, reiterating that these groups must be annihilated.
Turkey's recent military movements in the northern region Idlib will overshadow the negotiating table, he said.
Ankara says its deployment of military troops in Idlib is in harmony with the Astana understandings, but the Syrian Government describes the troop expansion into the Syrian territories as occupation that must end.
This contentious issue was focus of discussions, recently held by the Russian envoy, Alexander Lavrentiev, in Damascus with President Bashar Al-Assad and other Syrian leaders, as well as with the guarantors of the Astana political process, Iran and Turkey.
Sunday's talks in the Kazakh capital will involve Bashar Al-Jaafari, Syria's Permanent Delegate at the UN, the Russian envoy Lavrentiev, the US Deputy Secretary of State David Satterfield (as an observer), the Turkish and Iranian deputy foreign ministers, and Nawaf Wasfi Al-Tal, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry's political advisor (also observer).
The six previous rounds of talks in Astana, latest held in September, had resulted in adopting a communique affirming continuing work for carving out de-escalation zones and observing understandings on some contentious issues.
The seventh round of the negotiations will be held against backdrop of a statement by Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu that the Syrian Government forces had succeeded, with aid of the Russian troops, in liberating 94 percent of the Syrian territories.
The parties involved in the Astana process had reached understandings on muzzling the guns at some demarcation lines and carving out the low-tension regions. Influential powers have been engaged in another political process aimed at resolving the crisis -- held in Geneva.
The Syrian question has lured diverse powers of conflicting interests into the mayhem.
The crisis, branded by some a civil war and others an uprising, broke out on March 15, 2011, with wide-scale demonstrations calling for ouster of Al-Assad's regime and reforms. It had snowballed into a violent conflict, claiming more than 150,000 lives and leaving millions of Syrians displaced, homeless or settling in squalid conditions outside their home country. (end) as.rk
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