Turkey to host next summit on Syrian peace next month

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for the next Nur-Sultan summit on Syrian peace process in September, the presidential spokesman says.

President Erdogan “will host a three-way summit with the participation of Russia and Iran in Ankara on September 16,” said Turkish Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin late on Wednesday.

The announcement of the meeting between presidents of the three countries comes at a time when Syrian government troops and their allied fighters have made advances into the northwestern province of Idlib.

Large parts of Idlib province and parts of neighboring Hama province constitute the last major militant stronghold in Syria.

Erdogan, Rouhani and Putin will discuss the volatile Idlib, as well as the establishment of a constitution commission and how the political process should continue, Kalin added.

Since 2017, Turkey, Iran and Russia, the three guarantor states in the Syrian peace process, have held summits to discuss the situation in Syria in what has generally been known as the Astana format.

Kazakhstan changed the name of its capital from Astana to Nur-Sultan back in March, and thus, the general name for such summits was also changed to Nur-Sultan.

The last such trilateral summit was held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in February this year.

SS