Syria peace talks in peril before they even begin
Main oppn group threatens to walk away
GENEVA: The future of the biggest push to date to end Syria’s tangled civil war looked highly uncertain yesterday with the main opposition group threatening to walk away before planned peace talks even begin in earnest. Representatives from the umbrella body for mainstream opposition groups, who arrived in Geneva late Saturday, are refusing for now to enter the hoped-for talks with President Bashar Al-Assad’s government.
The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), set to meet with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura yesterday, are demanding that humanitarian aid first gets through to besieged towns, that bombing of civilians ceases and that hundreds of prisoners are released.
“If the regime insists on continuing to commit these crimes then the HNC delegation’s presence in Geneva will not be justified,” coordinator Riad Hijab warned in a statement in Arabic posted online Saturday. “The delegation will inform de Mistura of its intentions to withdraw its negotiating team if the UN and world powers are unable to stop these violations,” he said.
Opposition delegates were due to meet with envoys from Western countries yesterday morning, followed later by preliminary talks between the opposition and de Mistura. In addition the Syrian government’s chief negotiator, UN envoy Bashar Al-Jaafari was expected to make a statement to reporters, sources said.
Meanwhile there was no abating of the violence on the ground, with at least 12 people killed and dozens injured in a double bomb blast near the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, south of Damascus, yesterday morning, a monitor said.
And highlighting the dire humanitarian situation, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Saturday said 16 more people had starved to death in Madaya, one of more than a dozen towns under blockade by regime or rebel forces. Since December, 46 people have died of starvation in the town, and MSF warned dozens more were on the verge of death in the town where many residents reportedly have been surviving on boiled grass.
They are among more than 4.5 million people with “immense humanitarian needs” are living in areas extremely hard to access because of fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
‘Siege soup’
On Friday, the scheduled start of a planned six months of talks, protesters in Geneva highlighted the plight of ordinary Syrians with “siege soup” of grass and leaves. The war that has killed more than 260,000 people since 2011 is a complex conflict sucking in-on different sides-Turkey, Iran and Gulf states and also Western countries and, since September, Russia.
A fresh spat between Russia and Turkey erupted Saturday after Ankara accused Moscow of violating its airspace two months after it shot down a Russian jet. The chaos in Syria has allowed the extremist Islamic State group to overrun swathes of Syria and also Iraq, giving it a launch pad for attacks the world over, most notably in Paris on November 13 with 130 dead.
Half of Syria’s population has fled their homes, forcing millions to seek refuge in neighboring countries and also in Europe, where the influx is proving to be a major political and social headache. On Saturday, dozens of migrant men, women and children, including Syrians, drowned when their boat sank off of Turkey-adding to the almost 4,000 who perished trying to reach Europe by sea in 2015.
Ambitious roadmap
The intra-Syrian negotiations, if they get going, are part of an ambitious roadmap set out in November in Vienna by all the external powers involved. The process envisions elections within 18 months but leaves unresolved the future of Assad, whose regime has been making gains on the ground since Russia began supporting him with airstrikes in September.
Another thorny issue is which rebel groups will be involved in the talks, although all sides agree on the exclusion of extremists from Islamic State and the Nusra Front tied to Al-Qaeda. Ahrar AlSham, one of the most controversial groups in the HNC because of its ties to Nusra, was not represented in Geneva, HNC spokesman Riad Naasan Agha said. And the powerful Army al-Islam rebel group “is here, they are a negotiator,” he told reporters, but said HNC chief negotiator and Army of Islam member Mohammed Alloush had not arrived yet. — AFP RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: A Palestinian opened fire at a checkpoint near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank yesterday, wounding three Israelis before being shot dead, officials said, the latest in four months of violence.
An attempted car-ramming also occurred later in the day at a military checkpoint in the West Bank north of Jerusalem, with the attacker shot and taken to hospital for treatment, Israel’s military said. No Israelis were reported wounded. The Israeli army said the shooting attack took place near the Beit El settlement, close to Ramallah. Israeli medics said two of the three wounded had serious injuries.
“A gunman opened fire near Beit El, north of Jerusalem,” the Israeli military said in a statement. “Forces at the scene responded to the attack and shot the assailant, resulting in his death. Three Israelis were wounded and are being evacuated for emergency medical treatment in hospital.” It was not immediately clear whether the victims were civilians or members of the security forces.
An AFP journalist saw the body of the Palestinian man killed near the checkpoint. A bullet-riddled silver car apparently used in the attack was next to the body. The car had plates seeming to indicate it belonged to the Palestinian government. A Palestinian intelligence source said Israeli authorities had informed them that the man, Amjad Sukari Abu Omar, around 30 years old, worked as a bodyguard for the Palestinian attorney general’s office.
Palestinian ambulances sought to move toward the body, but were prevented from doing so by Israeli soldiers. The body was later handed over to Palestinian authorities. A wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks erupted in October. Most of the attacks have been stabbings, though shootings have occasionally occurred. The violence has killed 25 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. At the same time, 160 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks but others during clashes and demonstrations.
French push for peace
Some analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have helped feed the unrest. Israel says incitement by Palestinian leaders and media is a main cause of the violence.
Many of the attackers have been young people, including teenagers, who appear to have been acting on their own. International efforts to halt the violence have so far failed. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday his country was looking to revive plans for an international conference aimed at bringing about the two-state solution.
Should efforts to breathe life into the moribund peace process fail, France would move to unilaterally recognize Palestine as a state, Fabius said. Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and the situation has since deteriorated, with the prospects of fresh dialogue appearing increasingly remote. Palestinian leaders welcomed the initiative, having long argued for an international process to end the Israeli occupation and bring about the two-state solution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday criticized France’s threat to recognize a Palestinian state, arguing that it gives Palestinians no incentive to compromise. “This will be an incentive for the Palestinians to come and not compromise,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting. “The substance of negotiations is compromise and the French initiative, as it has been reported, in effect gives the Palestinians in advance reasons not to do so.”
The rightwing premier said “I believe that we will see a sobering up on this issue. In any case, we will work to bring this about and our position is very clear: We are prepared to enter into direct negotiations without preconditions and without dictated conditions.” — AFP