Assad regime persists with Geneva talks no-show

The United Nations-brokered peace talks continued in Geneva yesterday with no sign of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s delegation returning after walking out last week.

The talks, which began on Tuesday last week and are scheduled to continue until December 15, have made little progress.

The Syrian government delegation left Geneva on Saturday, blaming opposition demands that Mr Al Assad should play no role in any interim post-war government.

This round of UN-sponsored talks, the eighth, is supposed to focus on the first basket of issues up for negotiation, including details of a post-war political transition and the writing of a new constitution.

The second basket, which includes post-war elections, is supposed to be discussed at a ninth round of talks.

“We have had our fifth session of this round,” Yahya Aridi, the opposition delegation’s spokesman, said yesterday. “We have discussed the first basket on political transition, how relations should be in the institutions. This is in the context of the constitution and electoral processes.”

Mr Aridi said the opposition’s discussions with the UN showed their “seriousness about bringing peace to Syria and the irresponsibility of the other side towards Syria”.

On Tuesday, the opposition called on the UN and allies of Mr Al Assad to halt a bombing campaign that has escalated in recent weeks against Eastern Ghouta, a besieged rebel-held suburb to the east of Damascus.

“The bloody campaign on Ghouta confirms yet again that the regime is not in a state of negotiation and that they are not concerned in having any political solution,” Mr Aridi said.

“On the contrary, they are willing to undermine any track that might lead to a political solution.”

Meanwhile, France accused the Syrian government of blocking the talks with its refusal to return to the Swiss city and called on Assad ally Russia to not shirk its responsibility in getting Damascus to the table.

“We condemn the absence of the delegation of the regime and its refusal to engage in good faith in the negotiations to achieve a political solution,” said the French foreign ministry’s deputy spokesman, Alexandre Georgini.