Astana peace talks was a great success at bringing the armed opposition, Syrian regime, Iran, Russia and Turkey altogether to the table for the first time in an international meeting to help negotiate and settle the conflict. It was noteworthy to see the wide attendance of the armed opposition whereas only political opposition used to partake in such assemblies. It was remarkable to see the cards in front of the participants were named as “Syrian Arab Republic” instead of “government” or “opposition. It was Turkey that convinced these opposition groups to come to the table as a result of a series of meetings in Ankara. The groups who did not participate in Astana meetings were also adhering to the 31st December ceasefire. The ultimate aim of these talks was to extend the ceasefire and find solutions to end the civil war. The exclusion of PYD was important both because it is affiliated with the PKK that the UN that the UN and Turkey consider as terrorists and they would not gain legitimacy to their erroneous claims that they are representing the Kurds. As a matter of fact, PYD has leverage on Kurds only by means of armed forces.
Indonesia’s leading English-language daily newspaper The Jakarta Post publishes Harun Yahya articles “Astana peace talks: Diplomacy wins over military once again” on February 3th, 2017