22 Oct 2013

Syria: talks about talks face 'formidable obstacles'

Even William Hague, the host of today’s meeting on Syria, sounded gloomy about its prospects this morning. One of the dividends of UN resolution 2118,  forcing Syria to hand over its chemical weapons, was supposed to be the revival of a peace process meant to usher in a transitional government and end Syria’s  civil war,  but there is precious little evidence that any such revival has taken place. Today’s talks about talks are intentionally one-sided and face formidable obstacles.

Eleven countries who support the goals of the opposition – the removal of President Assad – are meeting in London; and those obstacles, apart from the Assad regime itself, include the Russians, the Iranians  and jihadist rebels who answer to no one. There are  divisions between more secular-minded opposition groups, and divisions too between those countries who believe in arming opposition fighters and those who don’t.

An international conference on Syria  is supposed to be convened in Geneva next month, though no date has been set.  It is unclear which opposition groups will talk to a regime accused of wholesale slaughter.

Those opposition groups will no doubt renew their calls for foreign weaponry before they decide whether to turn up in Geneva at all.  The Russians and Americans are co-sponsoring the Geneva process, though one senses from President Assad’s latest dismissive comments that he feels little pressure from his Russian backers to sue for peace.

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“Who are the groups that will participate?” he asked a Lebanese TV station. “What is their relation with the Syrian people? Do they represent the Syrian people or do they represent the country that made them?”

The biggest question for me in all this is not about Iranian participation in the Geneva process. First the Iranians will have to sign up to the concept of a transitional governing body eventually running Syria, and they haven’t done so yet.

As I see it, the bigger issue is Russia. Fresh from diplomatic victories at the UN which saw off a Franco-American bombing campaign, the Russians may feel little need to coerce the Assad regime into further concessions. The question the Russians need to answer is this: do they want to end the war, or do they want to keep Assad in power indefinitely?

“Russia is committed (to Geneva) in principle,” a senior western diplomat told me recently. “Russia wants the war to end.”
But at what cost to Russia’s strategic interests?
Today’s talks are far from pointless. It is the job of diplomats to keep on trying even when the omens are not good.  But when there has been a tenfold increase in refugees this year, when Syrians in the war zone are reduced to living on olives and figs, today’s comings and goings at Lancaster House must feel an awfully long way away.

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