WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – A new round of Astana-format peace talks on Syria will be held in Tehran in the near future, Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi told the UN Security Council.
“The upcoming summit of the guarantors of the Astana format, which is due to take place in the near future in Tehran, provides an essential opportunity for the comprehensive examination of situation in Syria”, Ravanchi said on Thursday evening.
Sponsored by Russia, Turkey, and Iran, the Astana peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition factions were launched back in 2017 in the Kazakh capital of the same name, which was later renamed Nur-Sultan.
It is a parallel negotiation process to the UN peace talks and led to the first Syrian national dialogue congress in 2018, which helped launch the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva a year later.
Under the Astana-format, four de-escalation zones were established in Syria, including the northwestern province of Idlib, which has been a hotbed for terrorists since 2012.
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