The 10th round of Syrian talks that recently took place in the southern Russian city of Sochi has officially become a continuation of earlier Astana-format meetings. Moscow argued the temporary relocation was an effort to embed discussions on humanitarian and political issues into an established format that initially had been designed only to enforce “cease-fire and trust measures” between Damascus and armed opposition groups. However, this is a mere diplomatic maneuver, since from the beginning the Astana agenda has contained such issues as constitution drafts, the liberation of hostages and access to humanitarian aid.

Astana is obviously exhausting itself as a “military issues format.” As the operations that the pro-regime forces conducted in three out of four de-escalation zones demonstrated, the “trust-building measures” have a distinctly aggressive, capitulation-oriented nature. Therefore, the guarantor nations — Russia, Iran and Turkey — attempt to pre-emptively navigate the negotiation process into the realm of politics and associate it with the results of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi.

The only issue that prevents the Astana format from an ultimate meltdown is the fate of Idlib, the fourth de-escalation zone.

“One of the main issues on the agenda" was whether the "military operation in Idlib takes place before the end of the summer campaign,” a source speaking to Russian state news agency TASS pointed out. By the end of the talks, this question still was not answered precisely, and the final statement of guarantor nations did not contain any arrangements on Idlib. Representatives of all delegations also avoided making any substantive comments on the issue.