Separate rounds of talks seek elusive Syria peace deal
PARIS: As negotiators meet in Vienna yesterday for two days of UN-backed talks over ending Syria’s bloody war, Western diplomats are ratcheting up the pressure for a solution – even as Russia pushes its own round of peace talks.
French foreign minister JeanYves Le Drian said that the Vienna meeting, after several failed rounds held in Geneva, was the ‘last hope’ for reaching a political solution.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin has been waging a parallel diplomatic offensive, with a new round of talks at the Black Sea resort of Sochi set for Jan 30.
Ahead of the Vienna meeting, officials from the United States, France and Britain, along with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, gathered in Paris on Tuesday to sharpen their response to the Russian initiative.
“The United Nations has to be put back in the middle of the game. There is no question of letting the Geneva process be hijacked, diverted or bypassed,” a French diplomatic source said.
In Vienna, representatives of the Syrian government as well as opposition groups are meeting once again for UN-led talks after the latest failed round in December.
But at least the opposition presented a united front at that meeting, and refrained from insisting that any solution required Assad giving up power, though regime officials refused to negotiate.
Hoping to extract some progress in Vienna, where the talks have been moved for this round for logistical reasons, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has put the subject of a new constitution on the agenda, avoiding the trickier subject of elections.
Next week, though, Russia will host its Syrian National Dialogue Congress, to which both representatives of Syrian civil society as well as Kurds have been invited.
Two months ahead of Russia’s presidential vote, Putin is hoping to show a foreign policy victory after securing a Syria military victory on the ground.
“Russia is going to present in particular its project for a new Syrian constitution,” said Adjar Kourtov, analyst at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI).
Moscow says the goal of the Sochi talks, brokered alongside Iran and Turkey, is to ‘efficiently’ sustain the UN-backed talks with concrete ‘results’.
The talks follow the Astana meetings in Kazakhstan which led to four ‘de-escalation zones’ agreed under a deal last year between rebel backer Turkey and regime allies Iran and Russia.
But Syrian opposition leaders, who haven’t yet said if they will go to Sochi, doubt Moscow’s intentions – and some even worry their security is at risk.
“Bring elders, Kurds in local outfits, et cetera, that makes a nice photo, but it doesn’t guarantee that their representatives will be there,” a European diplomatic source said.
Washington, which has largely been absent in the peace process under President Donald Trump, has signalled a shift in recent weeks. — AFP
The United Nations has to be put back in the middle of the game.There is no question of letting the Geneva process be hijacked, diverted or bypassed. French diplomatic source