On 29 July, former PYD co-chair Salih Muslim reported that the atmosphere during the meeting with the Syrian government had been "positive and promising", adding that the government had accepted to discuss the notion of a decentralized Syria. He stated that the SDF was willing to join government offensives in Northwestern Syria and considered militant groups in Idlib to be no different than those in Afrin. He finished by stating that the NES did not wait for permission from international powers to start negotiations with the government, instead simply informed them that they had already started. Later that day, the NES returned over 44 bodies of Syrian Army servicemen killed by ISIL in 2014 to the Syrian Government.