On 28 and 29 November, Russian, Iranian and Turkish officials met with representatives of Syrian government and opposition in Astana, Kazakhstan for a round of talks on Syria where the UN and Jordan were also invited as observers. Nevertheless, Syrian Kurdish faction was not invited to sit at the table because of Turkey’s opposition. It was the 11^th conference of this kind within the Astana Peace Process, organised by the abovementioned 3 countries, which claim that their biggest achievement is the creation of de-escalation zones such as the one in the rebel-held province of Idlib. The first objective of this meeting was precisely to ensure the Idlib ceasefire does not collapse, after Russian war planes struck opposition targets in Hama and Idlib on Sunday 25 November. Representatives also debated the establishment of the constitutional committee, meant to convene early next year. UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who closures his term with these two-day talks after announcing his resignation last month, stated he regretted ““no tangible progress in overcoming the 10-month stalemate on the composition of the constitutional committee”, of which he has been a great advocate. Nevertheless, to Yahya Al-Aridi, spokesman for the Syrian opposition, part of the responsibility for that lies with Russia and Iran, as he stated that “Russia and its allies are withdrawing from that commitment now.” He partially blamed de Mistura for being “too lenient”, and added: “I hope, in his briefings next month, De Mistura would dot the i’s and cross the t’s and tell the world who is blocking international efforts for peace.”