The two-day meeting at the Rixos hotel kicked off with frosty exchanges between the principal negotiators, Damascus’ UN envoy Bashar Jaafari and the delegation of armed rebels headed by Mohammed Alloush, the leader of the Islamist alliance Jaysh al-Islam. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev opened the talks, stressing that the Syrian conflict could only be solved “via negotiations.” “The... 

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko (R) and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev walk before a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, December 24, 2013. Russian President Vladimir Putin says the new post-Soviet alliance with Belarus and Kazakhstan is set to launch in 2015, with hopes that Ukraine will join the union. The...