Syria congress delayed as Russia talks with rebel groups
SOCHI, Russia: The opening of Russia’s showpiece congress aimed at bringing Syria’s sevenyear war to an end was delayed by at least two hours yesterday, as Moscow struggled to bring together key players.
Regime-backer Moscow has invited 1,600 delegates to the meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as part of a broader push to consolidate its influence in the Middle East and start hammering out a political solution to the conflict.
But Syria’s main opposition group and Kurdish authorities said they would boycott the event, while separate rebel representatives were at Sochi airport but refused to come to the congress before Russia met demands.
“There have been some problems with an armed opposition group arriving from Turkey, which said its participation depended on additional requirements,” Artem Kozhin of the Russian foreign ministry said in comments reported by the TASS news agency.
The Russian and Turkish foreign ministers spoke twice on the phone in a bid to resolve the problem, he said.
A rebel source told AFP that Russia had promised to change or remove the symbol of the congress, which features only the Syrian regime flag.
But the airport, the road to the conference centre and the congress hall itself were still decorated with banners and billboards bearing the logo when the rebels arrived on Monday night, leading to hours of ongoing negotiations.
The main aim of the talks is to establish a committee to create a post-war constitution for Syria with United Nations backing, according to a draft statement seen by AFP.
Moscow said Syrian society would be fully represented at the meeting – the first of its kind held in Russia – but almost all confirmed delegates are from either President Bashar alAssad’s ruling Baath Party, allied movements or the regime’s ‘tolerated opposition’.
The Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC), the country’s main opposition group, said following two days of UN-led talks in Vienna last week it would not attend the Sochi congress.
The SNC accused Assad and his Russian backers of continuing to rely on military might and showing no willingness to enter into honest negotiations. — AFP