Putin, Macron agree to continue coordination on Syrian peace process

2/18/2019 - 3:53:03 PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron agreed during a phone conversation to continue coordination of the two countries in order to facilitate the peace settlement in Syria, the Kremlin said on February 16.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron (L) agreed to continue coordination on Syrian peace process.

"The parties noted the need to promote the intra-Syrian political dialogue and to launch the work of the Constitutional Committee as soon as possible," a Kremlin statement said.

Putin and Macron discussed the developments in northeastern Syria and the Idlib de-escalation zone, and Putin warned that militants are preparing chemical weapon provocations, citing available data.

They reaffirmed mutual commitment to continue Russia-France contacts for the sake of assisting Syria's return to peace, it said.

Putin and Macron also agreed on further cooperation to accelerate the settlement of the Ukrainian internal conflict, including in the Normandy format, the Kremlin said.

On February 14, Putin and his Turkish and Iranian counterparts agreed on several key directions of future interaction in the settlement of the Syrian crisis after a trilateral summit in the Russian city of Sochi, including pushing forward the constitutional reform in the country.

Putin said that most of the participants of the constitutional committee had been agreed on with the Syrian government and the opposition, and that the next step would be to elaborate regulations for the main parameters of its functioning.

Source: NDO

Removing “bottlenecks” in global problems

The Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of the world’s leading developed and emerging economies (G20) recently held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil emphasised the need to reform global governance institutions, especially the United Nations Security Council. The meeting is also an opportunity for G20 to find solutions to a series of hot issues facing the world, such as poverty, climate change, and conflict.

ASEAN FMs issue statement on maintaining, promoting stability in maritime sphere in Southeast Asia

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers on December 30 issued a statement on maintaining and promoting stability in the maritime sphere in Southeast Asia.

Optimistic signals of the world economy

The world economy has overcome a challenging year, but has proven more resilient than expected. The Financial Times (UK) commented that 2023 was a positive year for the world economy as the economic surprise index collated by Citigroup shew that actual data have underwhelmed economists’ predictions for much of the past months. These economic trends are the basis for optimism about the world economy in 2024.