Alwaght- A new round of multilateral talks aimed at establishing peace in Syria within a framework known as the Astana process have been held in Kazakhstan’s capital of Nur-Sultan, formerly known as Astana.
Officials from Turkey, Russia, and Iran met Thursday in the Kazakh capital to discuss technical issues around ongoing talks between the three nations to find a settlement to the Syrian crisis.
The discussions focused on issues including the establishment of a committee tasked with drafting a new Syrian constitution, efforts to reduce tensions around Idlib, return of refugees, and post-war reconstruction.
The agenda of the technical talks is the completion of the work on the establishment of the Constitutional Committee and the participation of new observer states to the meeting process.
Turkey’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sedat Onal, Russian presidential envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev, and Iran's Ali Asghar Haji will co-chair the meeting.
Jordanian officials, UN high commissioner for refugees and representatives of the International Red Cross also took part in the meeting as observers.
Turkey, Russia, and Iran serve as guarantor states in the Astana peace process.
The Iranian team of diplomats in the talks is led by Ali Asgahr Khaji, a top aide to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
In a meeting with the Russian delegation in Nur-Sultan on Thursday, Khaji said the common goal of the participants is to guarantee peace, security and stability in Syria.
The delegation of Syria is headed by Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, who held separate talks with delegations attending the talks.
Since March 2011, fighting in Syria has killed an estimated 465,000 people, injured more than one million, and forced about 12 million people - or half the country's pre-war population - from their homes.
11 meetings in Astana format have been held, one of them was held in the Russian city of Sochi, and all of them affirmed firm adherence to preserving Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and to continuing war against terrorist organizations in the country till completely eliminating them.
