BALADI NEWS
Washington will launch next week a “diplomatic and security campaign” involving meetings in Jerusalem, Paris and Brussels to discuss the Syrian war, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper wrote.
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, the newspaper said.
Paris is scheduled to host on Monday a meeting for representatives from the US, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, according to the newspaper.
It pointed out that the 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.
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 area 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.
The newspaper indicated that 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.