let's speak some more about this now to joshua landis who is the director of the center for middle east studies at the university of oklahoma and president of the syria studies association his via skype from norman in oklahoma joshua landis as always good to have you with us on al-jazeera how much progress do you think they have maids in this meeting really towards securing a lasting truce in syria do you think anything will change in the next few days and weeks. you know there's not a lot of progress but it is the 3 have to get together and constantly manage the situation which is quite explosive because there is an offensive led by the syrian government in italy province which could drive hundreds of thousands not millions of refugees into turkey turkey is also at daggers drawn with the united states over the question of kurds in in eastern europe radius region and so all of those different interests have to be managed and each side wants to use this conference as a way to underline its interests its needs to tell america in a sense that they need to leave the area so different intere

joshua landis great to get your thoughts there thanks very much for joining us there from the from oklahoma we'll have to leave it there unfortunately but let's turn to the other news at the u.s. congress may be forced into a pietschmann proceedings against president donald trump that's the warning from the house intelligence committee chairman if it's confirmed trump pressured ukraine to investigate joe biden though this is being reports say it's trying to threaten to cut off military aid to ukraine if it does not investigate whether buys and he says position is vice president to help his son trump ever insists he's done nothing wrong mike hanna has this report from washington. president trump continued to dumb play the reports describing his conversation with the ukrainian president in july as absolutely perfect. we had a great conversation. conversation i had with a large majority with large rock n roll of the corrupt they can write large back that we don't want are people like vice president biden. 6 grew up already in the ukraine the unverified and vague accusation against joe biden wa

northwestern part of syria there are these hard core groups resisting conducting a last stand joshua landisis director of the center for middle east studies at the university of oklahoma he says the u.s. is confused about its spawn a c. in syria i think it's up to mines on the one hand it continually asked syria not to move ahead and reconquer the syria which would cause all the al qaeda affiliated jihad as groups to be destroyed at the same time as it's picking off these groups it's worried about the humanitarian. consequences of syria's recapture of this region it doesn't want an outflow of refugees its allies saudi arabia turkey israel do not want syria to be strengthened. and the united states wants to roll back iran so it wants to weaken our side as much as it can but at the same time it wants to destroy these jihad ists but it doesn't want assad to destroy them so it's a it's a bit of a confusing policy i'm a saying of course this is own where the turks want a buffer is the american zone it's the 30 percent of syria that the united states controls with its allies the syrian defense fo

to the people in northern syria so if this is you know this is a work that's not finished yet joshua landis always interesting talking to you thanks for your time. there is plenty more ahead few on this news hour zimbabwe's founding leader is laid to rest problem the gobby buried in his home village after his family's wishes prevailed. 5 years after hong kong's umbrella movement and the resistance carries on. and in sport with far action from the stunning upset rugby world cup. but yemen's hooty rebels say thousands of enemy troops have surrounded have surrendered i'm sorry during a month long military campaign who things have been targeting the southern region of. a spokesman says they've captured several saudi army officers along with weapons and military vehicles but coalition in yemen has been fighting for more than 4 years well go all out. thousands of the enemy forces have been captured as prisoners others were killed from among the prisoners is a large number of high ranking officers and soldiers of saudi citizenship more than 72 hours from the launch of the operation they destroyed

the kurdish forces out of there good to speak to you as always joshua landis there in norman oklahoma thanks for being with us but are now the head of the united nations nuclear watchdog has met the iranian officials a day off to add further scaled down its commitments to the 2050 nuclear deal iran announced on saturday it could now increase un human wichman levels beyond the 20 percent but it doesn't have plans to do that yet iranian foreign minister the iranian forms that told the i.a.e.a. its actions are allowed under the deal francis' iran not to downgrade its commitments saying the channels for dialogue are still open dosage of body has more from to iran. this was a prescheduled meeting between the acting head of the international atomic energy agency and iranian officials as part of their ongoing cooperation officials from the nuclear watchdog come to teheran on a regular basis but this visit comes at a time when the future of the 2015 nuclear deal is very uncertain iran continues to reduce its commitments as it announced on saturday how they will move forward with advancing the

northwestern part of syria there are these hard core groups resisting conducting a last stand joshua landis is director at the center for middle east studies at university of oklahoma he says the u.s. is confused about its policy in syria. i think it's up to mines on the one hand it continually asked syria not to move ahead and conquer this area which would cause all the al-qaeda affiliated and jihad as groups to be destroyed at the same time as it's picking off these groups it's worried about the humanitarian. consequences of syria's recapture of this region it doesn't want an outflow of refugees its allies saudi arabia turkey israel do not want syria to be strengthened. and the united states wants to roll back iran so it wants to weaken our side as much as it can but at the same time it wants to destroy these jihad ists but it doesn't want assad to destroy them so it's a it's a bit of a confusing policy i'm assuming of course this is own where the turks want a buffer is the american zone it's the 30 percent of syria that the united states controls with its allies the syrian defense forces

would be reached considering how much blood has been spilt in this war well earlier we spoke to joshua landis he is the director of the center for middle east studies at the university of oklahoma and he says it's unlikely that syrian president bashar assad will bring about any meaningful political change to end the war. there is not a lot of progress but in the 3 have to get together and constantly manage the situation which is quite explosive because there is an offensive led by the syrian government in invalid province which could drive hundreds of thousands if not millions of refugees into turkey turkey is also at daggers drawn with the united states over the question of currencies in in eastern your freddy's region and so all of those different interests have to be managed and each side wants to use this conference as a way to underline its interests its needs and to tell america in a sense that they need to leave the area it's quite clear that that bashar al assad is not having much of this he's not going to change the constitution in any substantial way he believes he's won the war rus

constitutional committee ok thank you for that james bays diplomatic editor in new york and now joshua landis the director of the center for middle east studies at the university of oklahoma he's on skype from norman oklahoma what's your assessment of this constitutional committee then as james has pointed out. it's been i mean 150 members that's a lot of people and it's divided equally but trying to find consensus. very difficult you know the united states puts great store by this process and we've seen a special envoy to syria james jeffrey has said that the debt he expects to war is not over and he expects that to settle be turned out by these elections and after this committee process is terminated and you know it's hard to believe that that can actually happen but obviously there are many people who believe it will it and keep on saying reiterating that it will happen the assad regime though has won a war in the last.