After all those intense efforts and excruciating talks to restart the Syria peace process, this is what it has come to: talks without an active opposition participation. The first Syria peace talks in two years started in Geneva yesterday after the United Nations announced that it would press ahead with them despite an opposition boycott. No wonder, a Western diplomat called the talks a “complete failure”. It’s not clear how long the talks would continue, but there is a near certainty that it fail to make any tangible progress.
The opposition boycott is proof of the intractability and complexity of the Syrian conflict which has been caused by the presence of too many players – both domestic and foreign. That the talks were sponsored by the United Nations didn’t give it enough edge. The main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) refused to attend insisting that it wanted an end to air strikes and sieges of towns before talks can start. Their demand is genuine. Talks don’t make sense when Bashar Al Assad and his allies continue their daily bombardments and killings of innocent civilians. They must at least try to create an atmosphere conducive for talks. Opposition activists were yesterday quoted as saying that they were far more concerned with repulsing a Russian-backed military attack as hundreds of civilians were reported to be fleeing as the Syrian army and allied militia tried to capture a suburb of Damascus. Perhaps the opposition’s decision to boycott the talks could have stemmed from a realisation that the negotiations might not make any progress. A solution to the Syrian conflict is impossible without the ouster of Assad, but this is a condition which the government in Damascus and its backers are determined not to accept.
Though the opposition’s opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) is not participating in the talks, their leaders said they would be in Geneva to meet the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.
With the latest talks set to fizzle out, bloodshed and fighting will continue in Syria. There can be no more urgent matter than putting an end to the terrible human tragedy we are witnessing there. This is a war in which 300,000 people have died, which has internally displaced half the country’s population and which has caused more than four million to flee the country altogether. This is also a crisis which is currently destabilising Europe. But unfortunately, there is no sincere effort from world powers to find a solution to the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time. International diplomacy has so far seen only failures in this five-year-old conflict, and this is a conflict that is getting inextricably complex with every passing year.
After all those intense efforts and excruciating talks to restart the Syria peace process, this is what it has come to: talks without an active opposition participation. The first Syria peace talks in two years started in Geneva yesterday after the United Nations announced that it would press ahead with them despite an opposition boycott. No wonder, a Western diplomat called the talks a “complete failure”. It’s not clear how long the talks would continue, but there is a near certainty that it fail to make any tangible progress.
The opposition boycott is proof of the intractability and complexity of the Syrian conflict which has been caused by the presence of too many players – both domestic and foreign. That the talks were sponsored by the United Nations didn’t give it enough edge. The main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) refused to attend insisting that it wanted an end to air strikes and sieges of towns before talks can start. Their demand is genuine. Talks don’t make sense when Bashar Al Assad and his allies continue their daily bombardments and killings of innocent civilians. They must at least try to create an atmosphere conducive for talks. Opposition activists were yesterday quoted as saying that they were far more concerned with repulsing a Russian-backed military attack as hundreds of civilians were reported to be fleeing as the Syrian army and allied militia tried to capture a suburb of Damascus. Perhaps the opposition’s decision to boycott the talks could have stemmed from a realisation that the negotiations might not make any progress. A solution to the Syrian conflict is impossible without the ouster of Assad, but this is a condition which the government in Damascus and its backers are determined not to accept.
Though the opposition’s opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) is not participating in the talks, their leaders said they would be in Geneva to meet the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.
With the latest talks set to fizzle out, bloodshed and fighting will continue in Syria. There can be no more urgent matter than putting an end to the terrible human tragedy we are witnessing there. This is a war in which 300,000 people have died, which has internally displaced half the country’s population and which has caused more than four million to flee the country altogether. This is also a crisis which is currently destabilising Europe. But unfortunately, there is no sincere effort from world powers to find a solution to the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time. International diplomacy has so far seen only failures in this five-year-old conflict, and this is a conflict that is getting inextricably complex with every passing year.
