Since the onset of the Syrian Civil War, there has been a multitude of mediation initiatives, the two most significant being the process led by the United Nations (UN) in Geneva and the Astana mediation platform convened by Russia, Iran and Turkey. This paper focuses on the Astana process and reviews how the regionalized nature of the Syrian conflict and the engagement of external actors with distinct interests impacted mediation efforts between 2012 and 2024.
The Mediation in Regionalized Intra-State Conflict project focuses on international mediation in intra-state conflicts that have significant regional conflict dimensions. The problem of conflict regionalization arises most acutely where neighboring states provide military support to domestic conflict parties and may even be involved in hostilities. These dynamics constitute a worrying trend because they tend to make the conflicts more protracted and less amenable to resolution through mediation.
The project is led by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. It is supported by the Cross-border Conflict, Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research program, funded by UK International Development.