The countries which are guarantors of the Astana process have managed to reduce tension in Syria significantly over the last six months and prevent provocations in the de-escalation zone in Idlib, Russian President's Special Representative for the Syrian Settlement Alexander Lavrentiev said on Wednesday at a press conference on the results of the 17th international meeting on Syria in the Astana format.
"Since the last meeting in the Astana format in the middle of this year, a lot has been done over the last six months. First of all, we have managed by joint actions to significantly reduce the tension in Syria, the level of armed confrontation," he said. The special representative of the Russian president also said that he has succeeded in "preventing any provocative actions on the line of contact in the de-escalation zone in Idlib, and the number of provocations has been reduced more than tenfold".
Lavrentiev pointed out that during this period of time the guarantor-countries of the Astana format "have managed to prevent the negative development of the situation in the south of Syria, to prevent the possibility of escalation of violence and to direct the development of the situation into a peacemaking channel".
The special presidential representative also said that the positive effect of the events in the south of Syria helped spread the "good practice" in the north, i.e. in the province of Deir ez-Zor. "We can state that so far about 12,000 people in the south alone have settled their status and about 10,000 in Deir ez-Zor. That is, of course, absolutely impossible to ignore. It is necessary to take this into account and work further," he specified.
Terrorist activity
The activity of terrorist cells in the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) has reached unacceptable proportions in recent months, Lavrentiev said.
"While assessing the overall positive development of the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic in terms of its stabilization, we nevertheless paid attention to the fact that recently there has been an increase in terrorist activity. First of all, of course, on the part of dormant cells of the so-called Islamic State (IS, banned in the Russian Federation). In recent months, this activity has taken on unacceptable proportions," Lavrentiev said.
"Every day there are terrorist actions against representatives of security agencies, the Ministry of Defense, the legitimate authorities, and most importantly, also against reconciled former fighters, they are killed," the special presidential representative added.
Lavrentiev emphasized that at the meeting in the Astana format, the parties agreed to take "exhaustive measures in order to put an end to this and to stop the radical atrocities".
According to him, some 500 people accused of anti-government activities in the SAR have been released from prisons so far. "According to our data, about 500 people who were previously accused of anti-government activities have been released from Syrian prisons so far," the special presidential representative said.
In addition, according to Lavrentiev, 66,000 cases against individuals who were wanted for anti-state activities have been suspended. "As we can see, there is quite an intensive effort on the part of the [Syrian] government. We should all, I think, encourage Damascus to take further steps in this direction and not pretend that nothing has happened," the special presidential representative summarized.
Western position
Russia is counting on a change in the West's position in favor of helping the reconstruction of Syria for the sake of stabilizing the situation in the country.
"We are very much counting on a certain adjustment of [the West's] position, but we see that so far the main Western capitals are saying that not a single cent will be given to Syria for reconstruction programs," he said. - "So we have seized the opportunity and we are trying to attract the attention of Western countries and the international community that we need to intensify this work. We think that will be the key to the further stabilization processes in Syria".
Harassment of refugees
No cases of harassment of returning Syrian refugees by the current government have been recorded.
"The Syrian refugees who returned to Syria did not complain about any harassment by the existing authorities to the Russian side, to the Syrian authorities themselves or to UN agencies," he said. - "The Syrian special services have not registered any cases of harassment, as they say so much recently".
According to Lavrentiev, this data proves that the Syrian government is "taking measures to carry out certain reforms, including of the law enforcement structures".
On December 21, the Astana format negotiations about the settlement in Syria started in Nur-Sultan. Delegations of guarantor countries - Iran, Russia and Turkey, as well as the Syrian government, the Syrian armed opposition and the UN took part in the consultations, which lasted for two days.
The armed conflict in Syria has been going on since 2011. Negotiations in Nur-Sultan have been underway since 2017, and in January 2018 the Syrian National Dialogue Congress was held in Sochi, which was the first attempt since the beginning of the conflict to gather a broad range of participants on a single negotiating platform. The main result of the congress was the decision to create a constitutional committee, which works in Geneva and whose main task is to prepare constitutional reform.
About the Constitutional Committee
Responsibility for the situation in Geneva on the Syrian Constitutional Committee lies on both sides, the government and the opposition.
"We have discussed the Constitutional Committee issue at length with the Deputy Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Syria. We are all ready to continue assisting the work of the special envoy's office as much as we can. We very much hope that it will be possible to hold the seventh session of the Constitutional Committee, not just to achieve some concrete results, but to lay the groundwork for holding such meetings on a regular basis. It seems to us that there is a general understanding of that in Damascus and in the opposition. I will never cease to repeat that both sides are responsible for the situation on that track," he said.
Accusations against Damascus are absolutely unjustified, one cannot demand any concessions from the government, Lavrentiev added. He also said that the participants of the Astana format intend to continue supporting the negotiating process and the UN special envoy.
Previously Lavrentiev stated that the seventh session of the Syrian Constitutional Committee could take place in January 2022.
The sixth round of meetings of the small (drafting) group of the Syrian Constitutional Committee was held in October of this year. Geir Pedersen, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Syria, acknowledged that "key differences and mutual mistrust remain between the participants in the Geneva dialogue, which prevented them from moving on to discussing draft constitutional reforms". The Committee is called to develop recommendations for amendments to the basic law of the republic, after which general elections will be held in Syria under the auspices of the UN.
Results of the meeting in the Astana format
The seventeenth international meeting on Syria in the Astana format, which was attended by the delegations of Russia, Turkey and Iran, as well as Syrian parties and invited observers, gave positive results for the negotiation process to resolve the situation in Syria.
"We assume that this meeting, which was held in Nur-Sultan, really has good results. "First of all, because all three guarantor countries are present directly "on the ground" - Turkey, Russia and Iran - and have a real impact on the emerging situation in Syria, including the political process," he said, noting that in the margins of the summit the Russian delegation "had a detailed and business conversation" with all the present delegations - Turkish, Iranian and Syrian parties on almost all aspects of the Syrian settlement.
"And we emphasized in our work what we need to do next in order to make this work more effective," he added.
The diplomat noted that since the last meeting in the Astana format a lot has been done: we managed to reduce the tension in Syria, the level of armed confrontation and achieve success in preventing any provocative actions on the line of contact in the Idlib de-escalation zone by joint actions.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Sergey Bobylev / TASS
Based on materials from TASS