Head of the Syrian government delegation to the Astana talks on Syria Bashar Jaafari said Tuesday he discussed with Russian and the Iranian delegation the mechanism of implementation of the de-escalation zones, but nothing was finalized yet.
ASTANA (Sputnik) — On May 4, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum on the establishment of safe zones in war-torn Syria as part of the the Astana talks on Syrian settlement. The four zones include the northwestern Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo provinces, the north of the central Homs province, eastern Ghouta near Damascus and certain parts in the country’s southern Deraa and Quneitra provinces. The memorandum on these de-escalation zones took effect on May 6.
“We have been discussing for the whole day with the Iranians and with the Russian delegation the mechanism of the implementation of de-escalation zones. We have not yet finalized the discussions… This is actually the only topic of the discussions of Astana,” Jaafari said.
The fourth meeting in Astana format in May was a breakthrough, as the three ceasefire guarantor states signed a memorandum on the establishment of four de-escalation zones in Syria. Monitoring over the de-escalation zones is now the main topic on the agenda of the fifth meeting in the Kazakh capital.
The deal was previously discussed during talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi.