Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana), is set to host another Astana format session in early August. By this time, it should be clear whether a constitutional committee for Syria will finally start to function in the near future.

The decision to form the constitutional committee was adopted at the Sochi National Dialogue Congress in January 2018. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told reporters July 10, “If the visit of UN special envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen to Damascus speeds up the finalization of the committee’s composition and procedure, one may agree on the date.” He added, “I think that it will not take long. In early August another Astana session is due to take place.”

Al-Monitor has learned that Russian diplomats hope to see all the disputes over the committee resolved by the Astana talks in August. In January 2018 in Sochi, it was decided that the committee was to be composed of 50 members each from the Syrian opposition, the government and civil society. This last component was supposed to be compiled under UN auspices with the help of a group led by Staffan de Mistura, at that time the UN special envoy for Syria. By late 2018, the lists had been finalized and approved by the opposition and Damascus through the mediation of the Astana guarantor states: Russia, Turkey and Iran.

The formation was supposed to have been announced by mid-December at a Geneva meeting between de Mistura, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, but the talks were not followed by a final statement. As it later turned out, the UN had been dissatisfied with six names on the civil society list, suspecting them of having too close ties with Damascus. At that time, de Mistura resigned and Pedersen took over. It took another six months to arrive at a compromise.