CAIRO (Sputnik) — The success of the Astana talks will positively affect the upcoming negotiations in Geneva, he said. Military and humanitarian issues have been a stumbling block during the previous Geneva sessions, so any progress in Astana will be beneficial, Firas Khalidi said.
"The meeting is military-related. As the Cairo platform is a political opposition union, we are not invited to Astana. The guarantor countries of the negotiation process and parties to the Syrian military conflict will be the participants," Khalidi said.
Spokesman of the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee Naasan Agha said he was not invited to Kazakhstan talks either, because the talks are devoted to the ceasefire issue.
According to the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, the next session of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on monitoring the ceasefire in Syria is scheduled for February 15-16. The first JTF session took place on February 6 in Astana with the participation of representatives of Russia, Turkey, Jordan, the United Nations and Iran.
