The latest round of talks on Syria ended in the Kazakh capital on Tuesday without an agreement on humanitarian aid or prisoner exchanges.
The seventh meeting between Syrian government and opposition forces in Astana was set to address those issues, along with plans for a ceasefire between the warring sides and a non-fly zone over new “de-escalation zones” brokered by Iran, Russia and Turkey.
One of the proposed de-escalation zones were to cover parts of Idlib, Latakia, Aleppo and Hama provinces, where more than one million civilians are living under control of Hayet Tahrir al-Sham.
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev
praised the talks in a statement released by his office, saying they helped “raise the effectiveness of the talks in Geneva.” Iran, Russia and Turkey were represented at the meeting, along with observers from the U.S., Jordan and United Nations.
Future talks are scheduled to be held in mid-December, and a congress of Syrian peoples will be held in the Russian city of Sochi next month, according to RIA news agency.
