8th round Syria peace talks gets underway in Kazakhstan

The eighth round of peace talks aimed at ending the Syria conflict began Thursday in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.

Astana is hosting another two-day meeting attended by representatives from Russia, Turkey and Iran, the guarantor states that brokered a cease-fire in Syria in December 2016, leading to the Astana peace talks running parallel to the Geneva talks.

The Turkish delegation is chaired by the deputy undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, Sedat Onal, while Alexander Lavrentiev, the Russian president's special envoy for Syria, leads his delegation, and Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari heads Iran’s.

Representatives of the Syrian regime, armed opposition groups, as well as delegations from the UN, Jordan and the U.S. are also participating in the talks.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry announced that UN Syria Envoy Staffan de Mistura would attend the meeting on Friday.

The bilateral talks between the delegations started at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Turkish delegation had a meeting with the Russian team.

Onal and the Iranian delegation had a bilateral meeting at 4.00 p.m. local time (1000GMT) for about half an hour. Meanwhile, Lavrentiev and the Syrian regime met separately. 

UN hopes for deal on cessation of hostilities

"l hope there will be a cessation of hostilities in Eastern Ghouta that would also certainly help us in getting in supplies before hunger grabs the whole population and also get the wounded and medical cases out," Jan Egeland, de Mistura’s advisor, told reporters in Geneva on Thursday after a meeting of the International Syria Support Group's Humanitarian Access Task Force.​

"We need reenergized efforts and l would be happy if this comes out of Astana," he added.

Some 720,000 people returned to Syria through the end of September, versus 560,000 people who returned in all of 2016, Egeland said.

Calling this month the worst month for humanitarian response on Syria, Egeland urged countries which have influence owith the Syrian regime -- Russia, China, Iran -- to put pressure on the regime to allow humanitarian access. 

Idlib and Eastern Ghouta

The armed opposition later met UN officials and released a statement.

"The military delegation in Astana stated that the main objective of the meeting is the release of captives," the statement said.

It added the other aim is to strengthen the cease-fire in the de-escalation zones.

According to the statement, the opposition wants Russia to fulfill its duty and put pressure for the release of captives.

"Iranian militia forces did not obey the de-escalation deal in Idlib and Eastern Ghouta. Hence, the massacres continue," it added.

Meanwhile, Aidarbek Tumatov, head for Asia and Africa at Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry, told reporters that expectations for the talks are "high".

"The situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone is expected to be discussed during the talks," Tumatov said.

On releases of captives and hostages, he said: "We expect that the parties will reach a concrete result."

Thursday's bilateral and multilateral talks will take place in a closed-door format. A plenary meeting is scheduled for Friday.