UN’s Syria peace talks a ‘waste of jet fuel’

When your job has been labelled “mission impossible,” failure may be the most likely outcome. There is no doubt that the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has persevered through extraordinary challenges during four-and-half years in the role.

But as the UN peace drive has dragged on without evident success, Bashar Al Assad’s forces have steadily gained ground, pinning the opposition into their last bastion of Idlib while showing little interest in negotiating an end to the bloodshed.

De Mistura has meanwhile been criticised for doing anything necessary to keep the UN talks alive while letting them devolve into negotiations without substance. The veteran diplomat’s defenders applaud his flexibility and creativity while facing an obstinate Al Assad regime.

For Emile Hokayem, senior Middle East fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, trying to create the committee is “motion without movement” that will not help Syrian reconciliation.

“It’s a waste of jet fuel and diplomatic credibility. This is something that is obviously not relevant at all.”

On the backburner

De Mistura told the Security Council the government and opposition had not yet agreed on the makeup of the committee. The actual work of revising Syria’s constitution therefore does not appear imminent, while the UN’s broader mandate of negotiating “political transition” in Damascus appears to be on the backburner.

De Mistura warned the Security Council that endless “consulting” had risks. He later told reporters that next month he might be able to discuss “what could be the beginning of the constitutional committee.”

For Hokayem, the constitutional project is an example of a chronic problem with the Geneva process, where diplomatic targets keep shifting in the absence of achievement. Throughout, Al Assad has been able to claim he is participating in UN talks while pressing a military campaign.