Syria congress marked by boycotts, little progress

SOCHI, Russia: Russia’s showpiece Syria congress aimed to bring seven years of war closer to an end Tuesday, but closed without a significant breakthrough after a string of boycotts and last-minute cancellations.

Around 1,400 delegates attended the meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, as part of a broader push by regime- backer Moscow to consolidate its influence in the Middle East and start hammering out a political solution to the conflict.

But expectations for the event were dramatically lowered over the weekend after the Syrian Negotiations Committee ( SNC), the main opposition group, and the country’s Kurdish minority said they would boycott the talks.

The conference suffered a further setback on Tuesday morning when rebel representatives, who had flown in from Turkey the previous night, said they would not go further than Sochi airport because the conference logo featured only regime flags.

In closing remarks, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said delegates had agreed to the formation of a committee to discuss the country’s post-war constitution, including government delegates and representatives of the SNC, among others.

He said the UN would lead efforts to form the committee, but did not specify how this would happen. A ninth round of UN-backed talks ended in Vienna last week without the warring sides having met face to face.

A copy of the final statement, seen by AFP in Arabic, did not mention the fate of Moscow’s ally President Bashar al-Assad.

“We are going from theory to practice,” de Mistura told reporters at UN headquarters by telephone from Sochi.

“We never had the government side and the opposition actually getting involved in a discussion of a new constitution, because they were not in agreement.

“I think we have reached that point.” — AFP