31 October 2017•Update: 31 October 2017
By Selen Temizer and Muhammed Shekh Yusuf
ASTANA, Kazakhstan
A seventh round of peace talks aimed at ending the Syria conflict entered their second day on Tuesday in Kazakhstan's capital Astana.
The talks, which will focus on strengthening a cease-fire that came into effect on Dec. 30, are brokered by Turkey, which backs the opposition, and Russia and Iran, who support Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The two-day meeting will also address the release of prisoners and hostages, and humanitarian action on mines.
Representatives of the Syrian regime, armed opposition groups, the three guarantor countries, as well as delegations from the UN, Jordan and the U.S. are attending.
A Syrian opposition source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media, said the delegation met Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov at his office early Tuesday.
Russian Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev told Russian media that Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev wants to meet the three guarantor countries.
The Turkish delegation is chaired by the deputy undersecretary of the foreign ministry, Sedat Onal, while Lavrentiev leads the Russian team and Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari heads Iran's delegation.
A representative from the Syrian armed opposition, Yahya Aridi, said they came to Astana to discuss two issues.
"One of them is the violation of the cease-fire by the [Assad] regime and Iranian militias almost every day. The other issue is hostages and forcibly retained people," Aridi told reporters.
Aridi said around 250,000 people were being kept in prisons by the regime.
"We know there are parties that want to prevent these two issues," he added.
Nazarbayev received the representatives of the guarantor countries plus the UN, Jordan and the U.S. at his office, according to a presidential statement.
The Astana process helps increase the "effectiveness" of Geneva talks, Nazarbayev told the delegates.
A joint statement is expected to be released later Tuesday after a plenary meeting.
During a previous meeting in September, the parties in Astana agreed to the boundaries of a final de-escalation zone in the northern Syrian province of Idlib.
At the fourth meeting in the Kazakh capital on May 4, the three guarantor countries had signed a deal to establish the zones.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to the UN.
