Lakhdar Brahimi apologises to Syrian people over deadlock and says Damascus regime refuses to discuss transition of power
Daniel Boffey, policy editor
The Observer, Sunday 16 February 2014 09.31 AEST
The Guardian
UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi speaking to the media in Geneva after the talks on Syria ended without progress. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters
UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has made a public apology to the Syrian people after talks between the country's government and opposition ended without making any progress.
Last-minute negotiations at UN headquarters in Geneva lasting less than half an hour left the future of the negotiating process in doubt.
Brahimi told a news conference his proposed agenda for another round of talks that would focus first on ending the violence and terrorism, and then on how to create a transitional governing body, had been blocked by President Bashar al-Assad's representatives.
Brahimi, an Algerian who has been the UN and Arab League's special envoy to Syria since summer 2012, said: "Unfortunately, the government has refused. I think it is better that every side goes back and reflects on their responsibility [and if] they want this process to continue or not.
"It's not good for the process, it's not good for Syria that we come back for another round and fall back into the same traps that we have been struggling with."
Brahimi said the Syrian government's stance "raises the suspicion of the opposition that the government doesn't want to discuss [a transitional government] at all". He apologised to the Syrian people, admitting that the talks "had not come out with very much".
The conflict in Syria is believed to have claimed about 140,000 lives since March 2011. Some 9.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
The opposition has long insisted on a transitional government that does not include Assad or his loyalists. The government has always rejected this and said there is no question of Assad leaving power, focusing instead on the need to fight what it calls "terrorists".
The only agreement in the latest negotiations had been to allow civilians to leave the besieged city of Homs and for aid to be allowed in.
Anas al-Abdeh, a member of the opposition negotiating team, called the stalemate a result of the government's "continuous effort to not talk and not to discuss the issue of the transitional governing body".
He added: "Only when we know that we have a partner, a real partner, that is interested in talking about the political solutions will there be a next round."
US president Barack Obama said he was considering ways of putting more pressure on Assad. Speaking in California, where he was meeting King Abdullah of Jordan, he said: "There will be some intermediate steps that we can take, applying more pressure to the Assad regime, and we are going to be continuing to work with all the parties concerned to try to move forward on a diplomatic solution."
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