Turkey’s military assault on Afrin, dubbed Operation Olive Branch, has tested the abilities of Moscow, Tehran and Ankara to keep the Astana process on track, with an increasing risk of major power conflict, as we explained here last week. 

An Al-Monitor correspondent writes, “To Iran, Turkey’s intervention will only complicate the already complicated situation in Syria and weaken the Sochi peace process that already witnessed a major setback in the Jan. 28 meeting in Russia, when the majority of the Syrian opposition boycotted the conference. As such, a meeting between the presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran is expected to take place in Istanbul to discuss the latest development, but a clear time frame for this meeting has yet to be set. The trilateral meeting will follow a similar meeting that took place in Sochi on Nov. 22, 2017, and laid the framework for cooperation between the three states on the Syrian crisis. According to an Iranian official who spoke on condition of anonymity, Tehran has advised Ankara to be aware of being dragged into a war of attrition in Afrin.”

“The Iranians had been trying to broker a deal between the Kurds and the Syrian army to secure the latter’s deployment in the area alongside Kurdish fighters and some groups that are allied with Iran,” the correspondent continues. “The Iranian effort is aimed at exiting fighting with the best results possible; preserving its position as a friend to both the Syrian Kurds and Turkey; and, at the same time, barricading the path for other parties that might want to invest in the fighting in Afrin to enhance their position in the Syrian crisis — namely, the United States. The military source near Afrin told Al-Monitor that alongside the Kurdish fighters defending the city were some Arab Syrian fighters who are known to be affiliated with Iran. The source explained that those militants were responsible for making sure that the Turkish troops don’t cross toward other areas and therefore were armed with anti-tank projectiles to prevent any such incursions. There are serious concerns on both the Syrian and Iranian sides that Turkey might aim to mix the cards once again in northern Syria and take the whole situation back to square one.”

Whatever the tension between Russia, Turkey and Iran on Syria, what still holds, at least for now, is a shaky commitment of the three parties to the Astana process itself. UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura showed up in Sochi last month as a kind of bystander, because that is the only lifeline available for the Geneva process, and there is an urgency to a revived diplomatic track. De Mistura told the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 14 that the situation in the country is as “violent and worrying and dangerous a moment as any that I have seen in my time as special envoy," and “there has not been a single United Nations humanitarian convoy to reach any besieged area since the end of November 2017.”