Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he hoped the Astana talks on Syria would become a good basis for the negotiating process in Geneva after Russia used its power to force its view on the talks and accelerate finding a solution to the Syrian crisis.
The talks in Astana took place on January 23-24, with official representatives from Damascus, Russia, Iran and Turkey having taken part, as well as a delegation from the Syrian opposition.
The two-days talks ended with Russia, Turkey, and Iran making a joint statement about the consequences of the talks and agreeing on a mechanism to support a delicate ceasefire.
“We reaffirm our commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, non-sectarian and democratic State, as confirmed by the UN Security Council,” said the statement.
They added that there’s no military solution for the Syrian crisis, as Russia has previously stated.
“We express our conviction that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that it can only be solved through a political process based on the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution 2254 in its entirety,” the statement added.
“We Decide to establish a trilateral mechanism to observe and ensure full compliance with the ceasefire, prevent any provocations and determine all modalities of the ceasefire,” but no obligatory action or preventive ways were mentioned or taken in this matter as Assad regime and Iran’s militias continued their offensive on rural Damascus.
They also said they supported the willingness of the armed opposition groups to participate in the Geneva talks and that they were committed to “minimizing violence, building confidence, ensuring humanitarian access, protection and free movement of civilians.”
Putin’s hopes and Russia’s strategy
Russia sees these talks as a victory and a proof of the success of its strategy in Syria.
Putin said Wednesday he hoped the Astana talks on Syria would become a good basis for the negotiating process in Geneva.
“I consider it very important to note that the participants of the process in Astana formalized the impossibility of a military solution to the Syrian problem,” Putin said at a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
“And we very much hope that the negotiations in Astana will become a good basis for the continuation of the negotiating process in Geneva,” he said.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also praised the gathering in the Kazakh capital. “Undoubtedly, it is a success. Undoubtedly, it provided a significant backing for Geneva [negotiation] process, […] the main channel for reaching the Syrian settlement,” Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.
He noted, however, that the Geneva process has been somewhat stalled for a while and said that Moscow hopes the results of the meeting in Astana will “help renew contacts within the framework of the Geneva process.”
Peskov also stated that the sole fact that the Syrian government and rebels have finally met and talked is a “positive” trend, which is why the Kremlin views the talks as a success.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, among the major achievements of the talks in Astana was the agreement that the armed Syrian opposition will participate in further negotiations regarding the Syrian reconciliation along with the political opposition.
“We agreed in Astana that the armed opposition will participate in the negotiations on the settlement in Syria, along with the political opposition, in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council,” Lavrov told the Russian State Duma. He said all sides agreed there is no opportunity to solve the Syrian crisis through military means.
“We have distributed a draft constitution [among delegates] in Astana, which we have worked out, taking into account everything we’ve heard over the years from the [Syrian] government, from the opposition and from the countries of the region. And in order for no one to suspect the Russian Federation, Turkey or Iran of substituting everything that has hitherto been done with the Astana process, we have invited all the political opposition… to a briefing on Friday, and we will inform them of what occurred in Astana, and on the way we see the Astana process developing in the future,” Lavrov said.
A solution in Russia’s name
According to analysts, Russia has the right to declare the success of its strategy in Syria as all the preparation it made led to these talks and its efforts were concluded in the final statement that puts pressure on the both sides.
Russia is serious about negotiating an end to the conflict and is prepared to do more than ever to achieve that. In addition, although the Assad regime is winning on the battlefield with the robust backing of Moscow and Iran, it has a relatively weak diplomatic hand.
The long predicted moment when Russia will need to declare its intentions towards Bashar al-Assad is closer than ever. So too is a reckoning for the Syrian leader with his other patron, Iran, against whom Russia and Turkey have increasingly sided since Iranian-backed forces led the recapture of Aleppo.
For the first time, Russia broke ranks with the Assad regime at Astana, chiding it for claiming that al-Qaida was leading an assault on the Wadi Barada area near Damascus, and suggesting that Iranian and Syrian forces, not the opposition, were breaching the ceasefire. It also overtly legitimised two groups that Syrian officials had long labelled as terrorists, the conservative Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam, both significant components of the armed opposition.
Ahead of the talks, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was unusually forthright about Russia’s intervention, claiming Damascus was three weeks from falling when Vladimir Putin sent his air force to save Assad in September 2015.
The collective messaging is clear: having secured the country and bombed the opposition to the negotiating table, Putin now wants a result that he can trumpet.
Russia’s repaired relationship with Turkey continued to strengthen in Astana, with both sides increasingly allied on what steps should follow from here. The Turks were central to Moscow’s new tone towards the opposition, particularly Ahrar al-Sham, which it has backed throughout the war.
They also kept the Kurds away and gave ground on Assad, saying his immediate removal was not central to a solution. This is a view that Russia still holds, despite its wavering language of late, the thrust of which was to put him on notice that he is dispensable if he wholeheartedly sides with Iran, which has a very different view of what postwar Syria should look like.
Russia needs Syria as a strong country that serves as an ally in the future. Russia wanted to use the peace talks to end in a political solution that ends the Syrian crisis and stops the war and military operations, as the more this war lasts the more Syria will be destroyed and harder to be rebuilt again.
On the contrary, Iran refuses any reconciliation between the government and the rebels. Iran wants the war to last until all the opposition forces are annihilated not caring for the destruction and lost lives. Iran needs Syria as a weak and destroyed land which will be easier to control and easier to be shaped in the future in the way that serves Iran’s goals.
The communique is largely aimed at the ongoing Wadi Barada fighting, which is taking place in an area that supplies water to Damascus. A trilateral mechanism, led by Turkey, Iran and Russia, is supposed to secure the ceasefire. The opposition and the regime refused to sign, but that matters less than its backers having done so.
After an 18-month battering there is little fight left in the opposition and even less will among its backers to continue to support a conflict that is losing intensity. Russia’s transition from belligerent to diplomatic force is central to that. The opposition knows its bid to control Syria has failed. And Assad is on notice that having led efforts to save him, Russia now wants a solution in its name.
The Syrian crisis began as a peaceful demonstration against the injustice in Syria. Assad regime used to fire power and violence against the civilians and led to armed resistance. 450.000 Syrians lost their lives in the past five years according to UN estimates, and more than 12 million have lost their homes.
