Washington will launch next week a “diplomatic and security campaign” involving meetings in Jerusalem, Paris and Brussels to discuss the Syrian war.
The meetings aim to tackle the future of the east Euphrates area, the Iranian presence in Syria, the war-torn country’s political process and the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
Asharq Al-Awsat learned on Friday that Paris is scheduled to host on Monday a meeting for representatives from the US, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen and head of the Syrian Negotiation Commission Nasr al-Hariri might attend the talks.
The Paris meeting, attended by James Jeffrey, US Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, is expected to tackle the standstill in Syria’s political process and Pedersen’s inability to solve the dispute regarding six civil society representatives in the constitutional committee, in addition to the fate of Idlib province.
In a meeting held in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan last April, the guarantor countries sponsoring the ceasefire in Syria – Russia, Turkey, and Iran- failed to agree on the names that would represent civil society in the committee.
Syria has been delaying any agreement on the constitutional committee pending the end of the Idlib battle.
Also in Paris, a senior staff meeting of the US-led Coalition fighting ISIS is scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the future of the ISIS-liberated areaa in east Syria and western Iraq.
As part of the US role in Syria, Jeffrey will also participate in a NATO meeting in Brussels to discuss issues related to the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s national-security adviser, John Bolton, will hold a meeting with his Israeli and Russian counterparts, Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem to discuss Syria and Iran.
Those separate meetings will set the stage for a possible summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of next week’s G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
