Assessing the Astana Peace Process for Syria: Actors,Approaches,and Differences

Abstract

Since 2011, numerous peace initiatives have been initiated out by several actors to end the Syrian civil war in a peaceful way. This article presents the “Astana Peace Process” brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran in early 2017 as a case study of a mediation and examines its predecessors to understand the reasons for the failures of those attempts and develops an assessment of the Astana peace process itself. To gain a better understanding of the Astana peace process, this article incorporates the efforts of main actors, their approaches, and the context of the war. In doing so, the article begins by describing the background of the civil war and then uses traditional concepts in mediation theory to elucidate the limitations of the unsuccessful attempts. Next, it investigates how the Astana peace process was different and the driving factors that encouraged the states to engage in this process and argues that Astana peace process’s overall effectiveness is likely to remain limited due to the conflicting interests of the mediators.

Keywords

Astana Syrian war Turkey Russia Iran mediation

Introduction

The Arab uprisings, popularly known as the “Arab Spring,” started at the end of 2010 in Tunisia and spread to the rest of the region, resulting in the ousters of the regimes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, as well as creating a civil war in Syria (Ogbonnaya, 2013, p. 5). The Syrian conflict started on March 15, 2011, (Bhardwaj, 2012, p. 84) after people took to the streets demanding the ouster of the Bashar Al-Assad regime and calling for democracy, freedom, and dignity. However, the movement turned into a full-blown civil war after the regime responded with violence, leading to the crisis which has persisted to the present (Rocha, Julio, & Machry, 2016, p. 82). Syria has become a hot spot of conflict, with chaos and destruction, causing more than 380,000 (France 24, 2020),¹

https://www.france24.com/en/20200104-syria-death-toll-tops-380-000-in-almost-nine-year-war-monitor

forcing millions of people to flee to neighboring countries and Europe and provoking the most serious refugee crisis since the Second World War. The conflict has not only upset the balances in the area but has also evolved into a regional crisis, jeopardizing the stability of neighboring countries.

One year after the Syrian crisis began in 2011, talks to find a political solution for the conflict took place. Since then, several mediation efforts were carried out attempting to end the conflict, and often, these initiatives were collectively referred to as the “Syrian Peace Process.” The fate of the Assad regime and any political transition in the post-war period are key elements requiring resolution if the war is to reach a negotiated conclusion. The main obstacles for the peace efforts were the contradicting interests of the countries and local groups involved in the crisis and the exclusion of some groups that were active players on the ground from the negotiations (Rocha et al., 2016, p. 82). Additional obstacles will be discussed in depth in the following sections of the article.

The Syrian civil war has been chosen as the topic of study not only because it has turned out to be the most complicated and politically significant conflict of the contemporary world but also since it is a good case study for examining the efficacy of various mediation initiatives to attempt to solve crises, as well as for highlighting what are the main obstacles to a successful mediation attempt. The Astana peace process, which was brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran in the Kazakh capital of Astana in early 2017 to achieve a ceasefire and to solve humanitarian issues, has been chosen as the unit of analysis. Regarding the methodology, several studies analyzing conflict resolution do exist and, certainly, they are all of great importance. Mediation in the literature of conflict resolution and determinants of mediation success will be analyzed to discern the strengths and limitations of the Astana peace process.

This part will outline the major theoretical issues involved in the successful mediation of civil wars and identify basic assumptions about mediation and mediators. By using Bercovitch’s (1991, pp. 3–6) framework of the mediation process, which argues that the outcome of mediation is largely influenced by the stances of the mediators, actions employed, and the context of the war itself, the article will examine the Astana peace process’s actors, their approaches, context of the war, and the outcomes in an integrated fashion to facilitate the development of an understanding of mediation generally and the strengths and weakness of the Astana peace process specifically. While scrutinizing the leading factors that encouraged the guarantor states, which have become involved in the Syrian conflict both militarily and politically, to engage in mediation as third parties despite their deep differences, it also will investigate whether and how these states’ third-party roles fit in the mediation context. The argument of the research revolves around the assumption that although the Astana peace process achieved modest progress in the de-escalation and management of the conflict and built a basic format for a start of political dialogue in the Syrian peace process, it is likely to remain a limited effort and will fall short of a successful coherent mediation initiative, due to the conflicting approaches of the guarantor states.

The article is comprised of six sections. Following this introductory section, the next sheds light on the literature regarding mediation, discussing its determinants in the context of conflict resolution. The third section examines the course of mediation initiatives carried out to end the Syrian war from a historical perspective. Since the start of the conflict, international and intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), have engaged in efforts to mediate between the conflicting sides; however, these efforts either did not yield meaningful success or resulted only in limited achievements. The fourth section provides relevant background about the guarantor states involved in the Astana peace process and will investigate the strengths and limitations of the process and its main differences from the previous attempts. Finally, a conclusion summarizes the findings of the article regarding the general nature of the Astana peace process in and of itself, as well as in the contexts of both the history of mediation efforts over this issue and of mediation.

Mediation

The end of the Cold War has altered the world’s security situation, posing new and disquieting risks to the international system due to instability caused by interstate and intrastate conflicts. To resolve these conflicts, several methods—such as negotiation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, or other peaceful means—have been tried (Sargsyan, 2003, p. 3). Since the end of the Cold War, it is being seen that mediation, as a means to prevent conflicts and resolve disagreements, has gained importance, and there has been increasing interest in and support for mediation efforts, not only by the UN but also by regional and domestic actors (Apakan, 2013, p. 39). However, during the Cold War era, there was a considerable lack of mediation or third-party intervention due to the bipolarity of the world order (Wallensteen & Svensson, 2014, p. 317). In this world order, there was a lack of desire to resolve the conflicts. However, as stated previously, from the 1990s, negotiated settlements, such as a ceasefire or a peace agreement, have become even more common than military resolutions (Kreutz, 2010).

The literature on mediation includes a range of definitions for both mediation and mediator types, and it is difficult to find a specific definition acceptable to most scholars. When defining the notion of mediation, some scholars emphasize the role of the third party, while others underline the characteristics of the disputing sides. Yet, there are some key elements that scholars agree on, which bring out a basic view of mediation. A common description made by Bercovitch, Anagnoson, and Wille of mediation is “a process of conflict management where the disputants seek the assistance of, or accept an offer of help from, an individual, group, state or organization to settle their conflict or resolve their differences without resorting to physical violence or invoking the authority of the law (Wallensteen & Svensson, 2014, p. 316).” Wallensteen and Svensson (2014, p. 316) defined mediation as an action put forward by an independent (or third party) actor to resolve an ongoing conflict through persuasion rather than coercion and to achieve a result accepted by the disputants, adding “thus, mediation aims at conflict resolution and primarily achieves this through negotiations; by resorting to reason and logic, and ultimately, by appealing to the common wishes to end violence and prevent its recurrence.”

According to Wennmann (2009, p. 1125), mediation is a method of peace resolution that is placed between conciliation and arbitration, and he defines the notion as follows: “Conciliation explores informal links between conflict parties to encourage direct interaction and identify issues of contention. Arbitration renders a binding judgment through a legal procedure based on consideration of respective merits. Conciliation and arbitration are the two opposite ends in a continuum of different degrees of third-party intervention in which mediation covers the middle ground.”

In Zartman and Touval’s (1996, p. 446) collaborative study, which is entitled “International Mediation in the Post-Cold War Era”, the authors report that mediation takes place when the conflicting parties cannot find a solution on their own and seek the mediation of a third party in violent, international, or civil conflicts. They also focus on the possible factors that affect the mediation. In their words, “mediation is best thought of as a mode of negotiation in which a third party helps the parties find a solution which they cannot find by themselves.” Also, in international law, mediation is a method of peaceful resolution of conflicts between parties and is among the UN’s fundamental missions. Article 33 of the UN Charter mentions “mediation along with negotiation, enquiry, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement or resort to regional agencies or arrangements (Wennmann, 2009, p. 1125).” In general terms, mediation is one of the most used and well-known strategies in conflict resolution and management, in which the main clashing parties get involved in peace initiatives brokered by a third party.

Although mediation has developed into an important tool for peacemaking in armed conflicts and has consequently sparked a broad research area of central significance in international peace scholarship, it still faces several problems. Mediation is accepted as a complex process that involves several variables. Therefore, there is a divergence of approaches in the literature on international mediation, and there is little agreement in the theory of mediation on what are the conditions and factors that lead to a successful or to a failed mediation (Sargsyan, 2003, p. 3). Yet, given its significance in contemporary diplomacy, there are attempts by scholars as well as practitioners to evaluate mediation through systematic analysis and to analyze the possibilities and limitations of mediation and the variables that affect the outcome of mediation. Prior to explaining the determinants of a successful mediation, it will be useful to note the factors that lead third parties to mediate and why the conflicting parties seek this mediation.

According to Zartman and Touval (1996, p. 450), disputants accept mediation out of fear of souring relations with the proposed mediating country or concern over international sanctions if they reject a mediation initiative. According to these authors, the other factor that pushes the conflicting parties to call for mediation is when they believe it is in their best interests or when they are convinced that prolonging the conflict may result in greater harm. On the other side, the third party accepts the role of a mediator in order to increase its leverage on the international scene and to become the guarantor of the final settlement. There could also be other motivating interests that push the mediator to take part in the process. According to Kressel (2006, p. 739), nation-states can try to benefit from mediation as an instrument to protect or extend their own spheres of influence. There are also scholars who use another term to refer to a third party instead of a mediator. One of these terms, according to Watkins and Winters (1997), is an “intervenor,” who has influence to put either economic or military pressure on the conflicting parties. Horowitz (2007, p. 57) differentiates mediator from facilitator as follows: “If a person who enters the process to assist parties in search of a solution is unfamiliar with the system or conflicting situation, he is called a mediator. On the other hand, if the person is part of the system where the conflicts arose, he is called a facilitator” (Horowitz, 2007, p. 57).

There is a consensus among peace and conflict studies scholars that the mediator’s role and strategy is crucial for the outcome of the peace process. Horowitz (pp. 52–53) argues that trust and persuasiveness are two crucial characteristics for a mediator to achieve success. That is, a mediator should able to develop trust between the parties and be able to persuade the parties without pressuring or manipulating. De Maio and Favretto (2018, p. 119) argue that mediation succeeds when there are differences of interests at the table, which they see as an important explanatory variable. They support their argument by giving the Dayton peace agreement, in which there were six actors having diverse interests at the table, as an example. However, they also underline that the literature is still scarce in explaining why and how diversity of interests influence mediation outcomes, and little attention has been paid to the role of this variable in mediation.

In addition to the divergence of interests or number of parties involved in the process, the type of the mediator—whether an individual, organization, or state—is a significant variable that influences the outcome of mediation. Greig and Diehl (2006, p. 364) argue that there are additional variables that affect the outcome of mediation, such as “the level of violence in a crisis, the geo-strategic salience of a crisis, and crisis duration.” Susskind and Babbitt (1992, p. 31) underline that mediation could be considered successful only when the violence has ceased; agreements have been reached that enable each party to save face both internationally and domestically; the resolution represents a good result in the eyes of the international community; arrangements have been created that will guarantee realization of whatever agreements have been made; and better relationships have been established among the conflicting actors. According to Hampson, the other criteria that have an effect on the peace process are “role of third party intervenors in facilitating dispute resolution; structural characteristics of conflict processes; changing dynamics of regional and/or systemic power relationships; the range of issues covered by peace settlement” (Sargsyan, 2003, p. 5).

Last but not least, Fisher (2001, p. 11) underlines that a mediator is expected to help resolve a conflict “in the best interests of all those involved in the mediation process,” by which he means that the main role of the mediator is to make sure that the outcome of the mediation effort will be in the interests of all the parties involved in the process. In sum, mediation seems unlikely to achieve success in the case of some complicated and difficult conflicts in the Middle East. Syria is a good case showing an ongoing political and humanitarian crisis despite several peace initiatives.

Mediation Attempts for Syria in Retrospect

The Syrian peace process is a term used to refer to the sum of initiatives to resolve the civil war in the country, which has been ongoing since early 2011 and which expanded beyond its borders. Given the severity of the Syrian crisis, several actors—such as the UN, the Arab League, as well as Western, regional, and local actors—have become involved in various peace initiatives throughout the past 9 years, seeking to end the conflict in a peaceful way. The conflicting parties that were sought to be brought to the table were the Syrian regime and Syrian opposition representatives, while local actors such as US-backed Kurdish militants were usually excluded.

The first conflict management attempt for the Syrian conflict was carried out by the Arab League in late 2011 (Küçükkeleş, 2012, p. 6), when the intergovernmental organization considered the crisis as more than a domestic matter and intervened by sending its Secretary-General Nabil al-Arabi to Syria to meet Bashar al-Assad and visit regional countries. In addition to this initiative, an observer mission was sent to the country to monitor whether the regime was in compliance with cessation of violence arrangements (Lundgren, 2016, p. 275). However, both initiatives eventually failed to produce a ceasefire. When the observer mission suspended its activities, the ball was passed to the UN, and hopes were invested in Special Syria Envoy Kofi Annan’s initiative. In 2012, Annan launched the Geneva I process and presented a six-point plan, which was supported by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Gowan, 2013, pp. 1–6). However, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s suggestion of a transitional government without Assad was contested by Russia, and the conflicting sides violated ceasefire rules, and eventually, the peace talks failed.

Annan blamed the Syrian regime, the opposition, and disunity in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the failure of the initiative (The Guardian, 2012). The same year, the “Friends of Syria Group” was created to forge unity among all oppositional forces and to establish a strong opposition front for a transition government (Sharp & Blanchard, 2012, p. 9). In accordance with the plan, initiated by then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the group held meetings four times in 2012, but the decisions of the group were vetoed by Russia and China, two key supporters of the Syrian regime in the UNSC (Reuters, 2012). With Russia and the USA at loggerheads over Syria, the frustrated Annan resigned, and following his resignation, Lakhdar Brahimi took his position as the UN Special Envoy to Syria. He then, in 2014, launched Geneva II, which was a UN-backed international peace conference aimed at bringing the Syrian government and opposition together to discuss a transitional government; this also failed due to a lack of progress in the talks (The Guardian, 2014).

In 2015, further talks started in Vienna in which, for the first time, regional actors such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran came together (Rocha et al., 2016, p. 85). During the Vienna meetings, which were held twice, no mention was made of the fate of al-Assad, but major powers were divided over who should represent the opposition (Reuters, 2015). After Brahimi, the leadership of UN mediation was taken up by Staffan de Mistura. After the failures of Geneva I and Geneva II, Mistura launched Geneva III in 2016, but the same scenario unfolded. Although conditions on the ground in Syria had changed between the last round and Geneva III, the talks were suspended after the opposition and regime representatives refused to agree to sit at the same table. In the Geneva process, the USA and Russia were the major players, while the Arab League, China, the EU, France, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, and the UK were also participants. The same year, the Lausanne talks between the USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Iran also took place, but these suffered from a failure to agree on a common strategy with Russia to end the conflict in Syria (Reuters, 2016). Following the subsequent failure of Geneva III, a new peace process was initiated in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2017 with the leadership of Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

Why Did the Above-mentioned Efforts Fail?

History is replete with attempts to end conflicts by mediation. As Lundgren (2015, p. 6) says, “Syria is clearly a case of repeated mediation.” The conflict in Syria has proven exceptionally resistant to mediation (Lynch, 2013, p. 6). There were several factors that led to the failure of the Syria peace initiatives, and it is crucial to assess what went wrong. According to Hinnebusch and Zartman, the “impartiality” of the mediator and “inclusivity” of all key players, the “strategy” and “leverage”of the mediators, and the “duration” of the conflict are central to the success of mediation (Hinnebusch & Zartman, 2016, p. 2). In the case of Syria, neither the UN nor the Arab League was considered to be impartial. The Arab League was viewed as one-sided because it placed all demands for concessions on the regime.

In mediation, it is necessary to build trust with all the disputing parties (Bercovitch & Lee, 2003, p. 6). Regarding inclusivity, studies suggest that an inclusive peace process has a higher likelihood of achieving peace (Paffenholz, 2015, p. 1). In the Syria case, some regional countries directly affected by the crisis and local actors involved in the conflict were not invited to some of the peace processes. For instance, the first rounds of the Geneva talks excluded both Tehran and Riyadh, despite their role as key players in the crisis. Also, the strategy carried out by the mediators was problematic. They first attempted to prioritize a ceasefire or to lessen the intensity of fighting before the start of talks, instead of seeking a concrete reconciliation as a first step. Mediators also lacked leverage on both the regime and the opposition first due to their stance on relying on major powers, and second by not being directly in contact with the Syrians who were really suffering from the crisis. In the Syria case, the increase of the violence and the prolonging of the crisis were additional reasons for failure. According to Greig (2013), “mediation is more likely to be accepted before violence becomes so intense that it creates implacable mutual hostility.”

Aside from the points made by Hinnebusch and Zartman, there were other issues present in these processes relevant to the issue under discussion, which Lundgren (2015, p. 5) identified in his article. One of the main obstacles to mediation in Syria was the “mutual military optimism” of the conflicting sides, causing one or more of them to believe that they could achieve their aims through military gains on the ground rather than at the table. Especially in the first 3 years of the Syria conflict, the sides were not interested in negotiations, and their ambitions to see a battlefield solution were fed by regional and international supporters.

A second obstacle was the question of the “fate of Assad” in the transitional process, a matter in which both camps remained rigid. The “divided nature of the opposition” has also contributed to the absence of a positive outcome in mediation efforts. The historical records show that a splintered opposition is a challenging point confronting a mediation effort (Cunningham, 2006, pp. 875–892). The fragmented party in the Syria crisis was not the opposition only but also “the international community.” The insistence by Western powers and their regional allies on a system without Assad and Russia’s and China’s vetoes of this condition undercut the efficacy of mediation efforts.

Lastly, “Russia’s direct military involvement” in 2015 and “the rise of terrorism” via the Islamic State during 2014–2015 undermined any possible peaceful attempt for Syria. As Lundgren observes (2015, p. 2), the failures of the Syrian peace processes are due to “mediation characteristics, including strategic choices and perceptions of bias…the nature of the disputants and the strategic properties of the conflict… mistrust and uncertainty, aggravated by sectarian enmity, and international disunity over Syria’s future.”

Astana Peace Process

As noted by Apakan (2013, p. 41), “success might sometimes only be achieved after many failed attempts…There is no single recipe for successful mediation, just as no conflict is the same as another.” On January 23, 2017, the Astana peace process was initiated when the Geneva talks had been stalled for a year, having shown that they were not likely to achieve success (Priya, 2017, p. 1). At the beginning, the Astana peace process started as a less ambitious effort, focused only on ceasing hostilities among the parties and on the functioning of de-escalation zones, rather than on developing an immediate political solution. Astana was chosen as the venue of talks because Kazakhstan country had no stake in the Syrian conflict and was considered neutral by all parties. The initiative’s timing, participant list, location, guarantors, and geopolitical context point to potentially important shifts in the international effort to end the conflict (Balanche, 2017). By using Bercovitch’s (1991, pp. 3–6) framework of the mediation process, this part of the article will investigate the Astana peace process’s actors, their approaches, the context and the outcomes achieved comprehensively, to facilitate the development of an understanding of mediation generally, and the strengths and weakness of the Astana peace process specifically.

Mediators

Russia

Russia has never considered the crisis in Syria as a “spring” but rather used the terms “turmoil,” “extremism,” or “destabilization” in defining the developments in the country (Erdoğan, 2015, p. 258). Moscow considered the crisis as an internal matter of Syria. Russia’s main goal in Syria is to keep the Al-Assad regime in power, as the survival of the regime is crucial to maintaining Russian interests in the country. For this aim, Moscow threw its full weight behind the regime both with substantial arms and logistical support and by blocking resolutions critical of the regime at the UN Security Council, considering that Libyan-style intervention by the West would harm Russian interests in Syria (Ayoob, 2012).

The Syrian regime remaining in power means a lot for the Kremlin. First and foremost, Russia wants to protect its key naval facility at the Syrian port city of Tartus, which serves as Russia’s only naval base outside of its borders since the Soviet-era, and its air base in Latakia, the heartland of the Assad regime. Second, the Syrian regime has been the main client for Russian arms sales since the 1960s (Zdanowski, 2014, p. 95). Aside from large-scale arms sales, Russian energy and infrastructure companies, especially in natural gas facility and pipeline construction, have an important presence in Syria (Burnett, 2013, p. 14). This is the other reason for Russian support to the Syrian regime. Russia—a country that relies on the export of natural gas—is aware of the significance of Syria’s location as a route to reach Turkey and Europe. Lastly, Russia does not want to leave Syria to the influence of the USA and the Western powers. Russia’s military engagement in the Syrian war in 2015 was its first direct military operation since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Özertem, 2015, p. 7).

Iran

Syria is a crucial part of Iran’s foreign policy in the region. At the beginning, Tehran welcomed the Arab Spring revolutions and adopted a balanced stance about them (Piotrowski, 2011, p. 596). However, alarm bells started to ring in Tehran when the protests hit the regime in Damascus, and Iran quickly criticized the Syrian uprisings, which it defined as “foreign-inspired” sedition (Worth, 2012). Iran wasted no time in throwing its support to the Assad regime by all political, military, and economic means available.

History and domestic issues are also influencing Iran’s calculations regarding Syria. Like Russia’s, the Iranian position on the Syrian war was not surprising when considering the nature of the strategic relations between Damascus and Tehran. The downfall of the regime would hamper Iranian influence in the Middle East, particularly its gateway to Lebanon (Al-Moussawi, 2017, p. 139). The Iranian intervention in the Syrian conflict, taking the forms of intelligence and military assistance, was neither due to sectarian reasons nor due to joint military deals but mainly due to its own interests in Syria. Also, Iran does not want to see the degradation in its sphere of influence against its main rival Saudi Arabia and the latter’s Western allies.

Turkey

Turkey had different objectives in Syria than Russia and Iran. Turkey defined the Syrian uprisings as “calls for democracy” and supported the idea of overthrowing the Syrian regime. In the first months of the conflict, Ankara tried to convince Assad to leave power in a peaceful way and carried out shuttle diplomacy toward this end. After the failure of these efforts, it adopted a harsher stance and started to host opposition meetings and to provide military and financial assistance to Syrian opposition forces fighting against the Assad regime. For Turkey, the Syrian conflict came to be perceived as an international issue, and therefore, it started to also pressure the USA and the UN to take harsher steps against the regime.

In contrast to Russia and Iran, Turkey is affected by the Syrian conflict severely in terms of refugee flows and terrorist attacks, as well as economically and sociologically. One of Turkey’s main aims in joining the Astana initiative was to secure its national interests and minimize the costs of the Syrian conflict. At first, its stance in the Astana peace process was that the downfall of the regime and handover of power by force was necessary. Gradually, Turkey’s priority changed from the ouster of Assad to the prevention of Kurdish aspirations for independent statehood. Turkey’s relations with both Russia and Iran, the deterioration of its relations with the USA, and changing power equations on the battlefield played a significant role in the shift of this prioritization.

The Russian–Turkish relations, which were very close throughout the 2000s, soured with growing differences over the Syrian conflict, particularly when the Turkish armed forces shot down a Russian fighter jet for violating Turkey’s airspace near the Syrian border in November of 2015. However, after almost a year, the two countries engaged in a rapprochement when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Two weeks after this meeting, Turkey launched “Operation Euphrates Shield” and sent its troops to Syria to fight against the Islamic State (Friedman, 2017, p. 3). A year after this operation which achieved its objectives, Turkey launched “Operation Olive Branch,” an air and ground offensive in the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin in northern Syria. Here, the significant point is that such an operation would not have been possible without Russia’s explicit approval, as the latter controls the airspace in the war-torn country. Lastly, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria in late October as its third operation in war-torn country.

Its Difference and the Outcome

The main difference in the Astana peace process is that it is being led by Russia, in contrast to the Geneva talks which were led by the USA and Western countries. Second, it adopted a shift in the Syrian peace process from Assad’s ouster to humanitarian issues and the cessation of violence (Priya, 2017, p. 2).The other difference in the Astana peace process from all other attempts is that it brings together the oppositional figures fighting on the ground, rather than actors from outside the area who are detached from the realities in the country. In this way, it aims to create a military agreement that results in a political accord. Also, it is being carried out by key players in the Syrian crisis, that is., Turkey, Russia, and Iran, which are all involved militarily in the war. Turkey’s role at the table is to guarantee the participation of the opposition; Russia guarantees the regime’s participation; and Iran is included to avert its disruption. According to mediation literature, at least half of the mediators usually come from the conflict’s geographical region, especially in the cases in the Middle East. Some intervene as mediators because they perceive other states’ internal conflicts as threats to their own security, even if no military hostilities take place between these states (De Maio & Favretto, 2018, p. 124).

Moreover, being a neighboring country to the conflict, having been involved in the crisis previously, having a common defense treaty or a past colonial relationship play a significant role in the decision of a state to act as a mediator (Wallensteen & Svensson, 2014, p. 318). This has been the case in the Astana peace process, as Turkey and Iran are two regional actors close to Syria, and Russia is a close defense partner of Damascus. Lastly, the Astana peace process managed to bring the conflicting sides to the table to negotiate and changed the power equations on the ground in Syria. For the first time since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, regime and opposition representatives sat together for face-to-face discussions. According to Wennmann (2009, p. 1126), the “rationale for engaging armed groups is more important today than ever.” Because, as Blaydes and De Maio (2010, p. 3) argue, talks between only some of the potential sides to a conflict are more likely to raise violence than inclusive peace talks where all related parties have a seat at the mediation table.

As regards the outcome, a key difference in the Astana peace process from its predecessors is that it brought about concrete developments on the ground in Syria, in that it achieved the formation of de-escalation zones inside the country. What the Astana peace process meant to actors involved was that, a) from the opposition’s point of view, they remained relevant despite their losses on ground, b) from the regime’s point of view, the process is considered as a chance to regain lost credibility in the international community’s eyes and remain as a relevant actor at the table, and c) from the guarantors’ point of view, the Astana peace process means an increase of leverage and the strengthening of their hand at the table and on the ground.

Conclusion

Despite having opposing visions regarding the war in Syria, three countries have managed to find a common ground on certain issues and have an interest in building closer ties as the conflict in Syria prolongs. The cooperation among the three parties is likely to have significant consequences for Middle Eastern politics in general, and the Syrian crisis in particular, as these countries aim to maximize benefits and minimize costs. When considering the strengths of the Astana peace process, first and foremost to be considered is the fact that “lessening the potential for conflict” in Syria currently serves the national interests of all three countries. The three guarantors support the “territorial integrity of Syria.” The partition of Syria is of no benefit for any of them, and each of these three countries may be faced with significant losses in such a scenario.

The second strength is that the guarantor states find themselves on the same page on the issue of “fighting extremism”. They are concerned that jihadist extremists finding fertile ground in Syria may harm their interests. The third strength is that the Astana peace process brings these countries together amid the “declining US influence” in the Middle East, which is likely to create a vacuum that several actors will seek to fill. The failure of American unipolarity in the region is an advantage not only for Moscow and Tehran but also for Turkey due to Washington’s support of the People’s Protection Units belonging to the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD) and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered by Ankara as a terrorist group threatening Turkish national security and stability.

This article has tried to assess the importance of the Syrian conflict by means of an analysis of the previous mediation attempts to solve the conflict; understand the important ways that the Astana peace process has been different from the former efforts; explore the diverse interests of the troika guarantors related to the Syrian conflict and how these countries act in the peace talks to achieve their interests; and analyze whether the Astana peace process serves as a prelude to peace in Syria within Bercovitch’s mediation process.

While acknowledging that the Astana talks are still an ongoing process, the article concludes that the Astana troika achieved progress in the resolution of the conflict and built a good format as a start for political dialogue in the Syria peace process. It managed to achieve modest but meaningful success in the formation of the de-escalation zones inside Syria, a lessening of the conflict in a way that serves the national interests of all three countries, and to bring all the parties of the conflict to the negotiating table—all of this in the midst of the many conflicting ambitions at stake. The success of the Astana peace process will also depend on the guarantors’ ability to continue their efforts in an innovative and adaptable way in the face of the changing conditions in Syria.

There are studies in the mediation literature which find that a crisis may become even more complex when the states involved harbor their particular ambitions and their own preferred solutions to that crisis. This applies not only for major powers but also for regional actors with political ambitions in the neighborhood. Thus, this means that mediation efforts become part of particular actors’ foreign policies and, it becomes unclear whether the central concern is the “best” interest of the conflicting parties or the interests of the mediators. This has been the case in the approach of Russia, Iran, and Turkey to the Syrian crisis, and this is the main limitation for the success of the Astana peace process. Considering their military involvement, partiality, and conflicting interests, it is implausible to argue that the Astana peace process can achieve total peace in the country in the near future. Thus, it is likely to remain as a limited mediation effort serving as a prelude to peace in Syria but not a completely mediation initiative that, in and of itself, ends the war in the country.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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