What will be on the agenda of the Astana partners’ upcoming summit?

Tabnak – As the Syrian army is preparing for the next stage of its anti-terrorist fight in Idlib, presidents of the three guarantors of the Syrian ceasefire will gather together in Tehran to discuss the latest developments in the war-torn country.

The presidents of Iran, Russia, and Turkey will hold their third round of tripartite summit in Iran next week in an attempt to find ways to end the ongoing crisis in Syria, Turkish state television says.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will host his Turkish and Russian counterparts Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, respectively, on September 7, state-run TRT Haber television said on Monday.

Private NTV television also said the summit would be held in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz as Iran, Russia and Turkey are acting as guarantor states for a peace process in Syria. The three presidents have previously held summits in the Russian resort city of Sochi in November 2017 and in the Turkish capital Ankara in April.

The New Arab website notes that Turkey initially wanted to meet with leaders from France, Germany and Russia on the same day (September 7), to discuss regional issues including the Syrian conflict.

However, press reports over the last weeks have suggested that such a meeting was increasingly unlikely and was set to be replaced by the latest three-way summit between Iran, Russia and Turkey.

Erdogan has previously insisted the trilateral meetings and the Astana talks were not an "alternative" to the UN-backed Geneva process to find peace in Syria. However the three leaders are visibly pushing for influence in the region while the West steps back.

The news about the upcoming summit comes as the US and Russia exchanged warnings over the weekend concerning developments in Idlib. US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Washington was willing to intervene militarily if Assad uses chemical weapons to recapture the province. Russia accuses the US of making up a chemical attack to use it as a pretext to attack Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, a UN spokeswoman said on Friday that United Nations Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura had invited Iran, Russia and Turkey for talks due to be held in Geneva next month on forming Syria's Constitutional Committee.

"Special Envoy de Mistura continues his consultation on the establishment of a Syrian-led, Syrian-owned and UN facilitated Constitutional Committee within the framework of the Geneva process and in accordance with Security Council Resolution 22-54 2015," Alessandra Vellucci said at a news conference.

All in all, the upcoming trilateral summit is expected to be dominated by the current situation in the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib, with Syrian President Assad setting his sight on capturing this last rebel-held stronghold.

Turkey has warned that a military operation to take Idlib would provoke a "humanitarian catastrophe" with 3.5 million people crammed into the region. Meanwhile, Damascus says the militants have to choose between negotiating the terms of their peaceful surrender to the Army or face a military operation to wipe them out from their remaining positions.