Peace talks produce ‘clear agenda’ for Syria

The Syrian regime and opposition have agreed a “clear agenda” to seek to end the country’s six-year-old war, the UN mediator said Friday at the end of sometimes fractious and slow-moving talks in Geneva.

Veteran envoy Staffan de Mistura said he hopes to invite both sides back to Geneva later this month for a new round of talks, which will include the issue of counterterrorism at the request of Damascus.

“The train is ready, it is in the station, it is warming up the engine. Everything is ready, it just needs an accelerator,” he said at the end of talks in the Swiss city.

“I believe that we have a clear agenda now in front of us. We did discuss procedure, but we also discussed substance,” he told reporters.

The Geneva negotiations, the first since last April, were the latest effort to seek to end a conflict that began in March 2011 with protests against Syrian President Bashar alAssad.

Its seventh year begins on March 15.

Since then more than 310,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled the country, fuelling instability in neighbouring countries and creating Europe’s biggest migrant crisis since World War II.

The warring Syrian sides have been joined in Geneva by envoys of key parties including notably Russia, a major ally of Damascus.

But as in previous talks the focus was almost exclusively on the agenda.

Under UN Security Council Resolution 2254 they should be framed in three “baskets” or areas of discussion: governance, constitution and elections.

But Damascus pushed hard for counter-terrorism strategy to be added to the agenda, against fierce resistance from the opposition who said the Syrian regime was “stalling” the talks to avoid engaging with political transition. — AFP