Low expectations for Astana II, Russia and Turkey on opposite sides

The second round of Astana talks in the Kazakh capital don’t appear to provide room for much progress between the Syrian regime and rebels after Russia and Turkey, the main two backers of the current shaky ceasefire, have differed on the agenda with Turkey not showing its cards ahead of next week's Geneva talks, and Russia seemingly sticking to its position regarding the political process from Astana.

 

Mohammed Alloush, the head of the Saudi-backed High Negotiation Committee (HNC) delegation, arrived in Astana late on Wednesday, an indication that the opposition has not come to the one-day meeting with enthusiasm, especially after he said the opposition was not aware of the agenda.

 

Alloush said in a statement that he does not head a negotiating team to Astana, a group of experts he termed as technical. It includes military experts, and one legal and political advisor with a focus on establishing a ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid to besieged areas, and the cases of those held by the Syrian regime in prisons. In other words, Astana II is just a stepping stone for the upcoming Geneva next week where the HNC is prepared to engage in negotiations over political issues, including the future government of Syria.

 

Turkey has sent lower level officials to the meeting, and the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura is not attending, although his office is represented at the talks, which were pushed from Wednesday to Thursday.

 

Russia and Turkey are said to have differed on the Astana II talks, with Russia trying to focus on its proposed constitution and the political process and Turkey wanting to confine the talks to strengthening the mechanism for a more robust ceasefire.

 

The UN-sponsored Geneva conference, so far twice delayed since being halted last April, has been billed to attract ministry-level representatives.

 

The Russian-proposed draft of the Syrian constitution, presented at the Astana I talks last month, falls short of mentioning federalism as a system of governance in the war-torn country, but hints at larger cultural and administrative freedoms within a decentralized Syria.

 

Turkish and Syrian rebels opposed the constitution, while the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended the proposition stressing that the final say is with the Syrian people.

 

One reason Turkey opposes the proposed constitution is it fears it might lay grounds for a self-autonomous region for Kurds in the north of the country, known as Rojava, on the Turkish border.

 

Russia has maintained good ties with the Kurdish region and pushed hard to include them in the Syrian talks aimed to end the six-year civil war, especially in Geneva, a move strongly opposed by Turkey and the HNC.

 

Asya Abdullah, the co-chair of the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Rojava, said on Wednesday that they would not accept any constitution where Kurds may not have a say.

 

“The Kurds have to join the Geneva IV. Any meeting without Kurds, or writing a draft constitution without the presence of Kurds, mean that the Kurds will have nothing to do with it because writing the constitution should be in accordance with the will of the society,” said Abdullah at the Kurdish conference in Moscow where representatives of the Kurdish parties from the four parts of Kurdistan discussed the future of the Kurdish nation after ISIS.

 

A delegation from the Kurdish National Council (KNC, ENKS) will be present in Geneva as part of the HNC delegation.

 

The KNC, comprised of about a dozen Kurdish parties and the main Kurdish Syrian opposition party in Syria, have attended the Geneva and Astana talks, but they do not have any real authority on the ground in Rojava.

 

Mistura has said that the agenda for Geneva also includes negotiations regarding a new constitution for Syria.

 

"The agenda is clear, one is the issue about governance, the other one is about constitution, and another one is elections under UN supervision," Mistura said in Moscow on Thursday after meeting with Lavrov.

 

He said the UN does not want to change the agenda, otherwise, it would open Pandora’s Box.

 

The first round of the Astana talks resulted in Iran, Russia and Turkey devising a trilateral mechanism to monitor a ceasefire in the country.

 

The HNC has reaffirmed their position of not wanting any future role for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, this despite the fact that Turkey, one of its main backers, recently backtracked on the same position, raising the possibility that an end to the years-long civil war might not be possible without him.

 

The HNC has said it wants to have a face-to-face meeting with the regime, something that did not happen last month in Astana.