WORLD_ SYRIA_ Syria peace talks near collapse

Syria peace talks near collapse

The Gulf Today
January 25, 2014


GENEVA: Syria’s first peace talks came close to collapsing before they began on Friday, with the opposition refusing to meet President Bashar Al Assad’s delegation and the government threatening to bring its team home.

Still, figures on both sides later seemed to moderate their positions, expressing a willingness to meet their enemies.

The opposition said early on Friday that it would not meet Assad’s delegation unless it first agreed to sign up to a protocol calling for a transitional administration.

The government rejected the demand outright and said its negotiators would return home unless serious talks began within a day.

“If no serious work sessions are held by (Saturday), the official Syrian delegation will leave Geneva due to the other side’s lack of seriousness or preparedness,” Syrian state television quoted Foreign Minister Walid Al Muallem as saying.

International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi later started talks with the opposition, a UN spokeswoman said.

Brahimi earlier met a Syrian government delegation.

The government delegation told Brahimi that it rejected the opposition demand: “No, we will not accept it,” Information Minister Omran Zoabi said.

Figures on the government and opposition sides later said they were still prepared to sit down in the same room. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said his side was going to meet the opposition on Saturday.

Asked if that would be in the same room, he replied: “Yes.”

At the same time, Burhan Ghalioun, former President of the Syrian National Council and still an influential opposition figure, said: “There is no problem, we will sit at the same table.”

“There are no Syrian-Syrian talks at the moment,” said UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci.

“I cannot tell you anything about what will happen in the next few days.”

Even before the announcement that direct talks were cancelled for Friday, the outlook was dim.

“The objective is for the first round of talks to last until next Friday, but expectations are so low we’ll see how things develop day by day,” a Western diplomat said.

“Every day that they talk is a little step forward.”

On Friday, Turkish Premier Tayyip Erdogan denied that Turkey had ever trained terrorists to fight in Syria. He added: “That is your job. That is Syria’s job.”

He called Muallem “vile” for saying that.

He said that Assad had committed crimes against humanity and should give up power, adding that he hoped the talks in Switzerland would achieve peace. He said: “Our wish is that an urgent solution is found for Syria.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denied his country had sent Hizbollah militants to fight in Syria, saying the Tehran-backed Shiite extremist group was making its own decisions.

And he told a gathering at the World Economic Forum that he believed the Syrian conflict could be resolved within the next year, saying he hoped talks in Geneva would bear fruit.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on Friday for foreign fighters to leave Syria so that its people can decide their future themselves.

Speaking on a panel discussion about the Middle East at the World Economic Forum, Zarif said Iran also wants to see an end to foreign support for opponents of Assad’s government and recognition by all sides that there can be no military solution to the conflict.



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