A Turkish source told Reuters that the meeting between the deputy foreign ministers of Astana and the Syrian regime was postponed to an unspecified date for “technical reasons”, without going into details.
Turkish analyst Muhannad Hafiz Oglu said the Syrian regime, unlike Turkey, seemed reluctant to hold the meeting.
The Turkish analyst, referring to the “slowing” of the rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus after Iran entered the tripartite road, emphasized that the Iran factor is “part of the problem, not the solution”.
“The tripartite route was more dynamic and active, and it looks like Russia will press the regime and Iran side to reach a quadripartite meeting, at least at ministerial level,” he added, according to Orient.
Rami al-Shaer, a diplomat close to the Russian Foreign Ministry, confirmed that the meeting was delayed was caused by Damascus’s ongoing attempts to block the start of efforts to initiate a serious dialogue process between the opposition and the regime.
And he thought that the regime understood that Turkey’s exit from northern Syria could only happen if the ceasefire regime continued, and that this would require reaching a Syrian-Syrian reconciliation and starting the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2254.