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We report on the evolution of the X-ray emission of the accreting neutronstar (NS) low mass X-ray binary (LMXB), MXB 1659-298, during its most recentoutburst in 2015-2017. We detected 60 absorption lines during the soft state(of which 21 at more than 3 $\sigma$), that disappeared in the hard state(e.g., the Fe xxv and Fe xxvi lines). The absorbing plasma is at rest, likelypart of the accretion disc atmosphere. The bulk of the absorption features canbe reproduced by a high column density ($log(N_H/cm^{-2})\sim23.5$) of highlyionised ($log(\xi/erg~cm~s^{-1})\sim3.8$) plasma. Its disappearance during thehard state is likely the consequence of a thermal photo-ionisation instability.MXB 1659-298's continuum emission can be described by the sum of an absorbeddisk black body and its Comptonised emission, plus a black body component. Theobserved spectral evolution with state is in line with that typically observedin atoll and stellar mass black hole LMXB. The presence of a relativistic FeK$\alpha$ disk-line is required during the soft state. We also tentativelydetect the Fe xxii doublet, whose ratio suggests an electron density of theabsorber of $n_e>10^{13} cm^{-3}$, hence, the absorber is likely located at$<7\times10^4 r_g$ from the illuminating source, well inside the Compton andouter disc radii. MXB 1659-298 is the third well monitored atoll LMXBshowcasing intense Fe xxv and Fe xxvi absorption during the soft state thatdisappears during the hard state.

Evolution of the disc atmosphere in the X-ray binary MXB 1659-298, during its 2015-2017 outburst