Syria’s ruling regime says it will attend Geneva talks with “good intention” to end the war and with no preconditions. At the same time, discord between Syrian opposition elements is growing, threatening potential talks in June.
Should the Geneva peace conference take place, the Syrian
government will be represented by the Foreign Minister, Walid
al-Moualem. Speaking from Damascus to Beirut-based TV, he said
his government is yet to decide on the makeup of its delegation
for talks.
“We will go with good intentions, with hopes that we reach a
(deal) … we will go to Geneva with no preconditions,”
Reuters reported citing the Minister.
While the regime expresses firmness, Syria’s opposition coalition
said it will only take part in a planned peace conference if a
deadline was set for an internationally-guaranteed settlement
based on President Bashar Assad leaving power.
However, despite the looming event, it still remains unclear if
the opposition will participate, and if it is going to be in
Geneva, who will represent it.
While Russia and the US are joining efforts to arrange a peace
conference, a sharp division in the Syrian opposition elements
has become evident.
The Revolutionary Movement in Syria, the umbrella organization of
activists on the ground, claims exiled members of the National
Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SC) are
unable to fulfill their obligations due to “ongoing
discord”.
“There is no doubt that the Syrian Coalition’s leadership has
failed to fulfill its responsibility to represent the great
Syrian people’s revolution at the organizational, political and
humanitarian level,” the statement read.
The criticism comes as the Syrian National Coalition is meeting
in Istanbul to discuss expansion of its decision-making bodies,
choose a new leader and devise a joint position on the Geneva
talks.
In its “final warning” to the exiled coalition leaders,
four leading rebel groups inside Syria have slammed them for
undermining the rebellion and lacking legitimacy.
The Movement members said they could not “bestow legitimacy upon
any political body that subverts the revolution”.
“There is a daunting realization that the opposition has to
get its act together before Geneva, otherwise the Assad team will
run rings around us,” Reuters quoted a senior opposition
coalition source at the talks in Istanbul as saying.
But at the meeting in Turkey, members of the National Coalition
failed to agree on who should represent them at the
conference.
The Revolutionary Movement has called for at least half the
Coalition’s leadership bodies to be made up of “revolutionary
forces”. It dismissed the meeting in Istanbul as a “feeble
attempt to add persons … that have no real impact on the
revolution”.
The opposition in Syria said the failure of the coalition has
opened the door to “blatant interference” by outside
powers.
Coalition insiders say that if a deal is not struck, the liberal
wing will not participate in peace talks, thus, further
undermining the ability of the coalition to represent the
opposition, Reuters reports.
For now the Geneva conference is seen by international powers as
the only option that can yield success in resolving the more than
two-year long conflict in Syria.
Russia, however, suspects there are nations apparently trying to
undermine the effort to call the meeting by accepting the UN
Human Rights Council resolution. The document sponsored by Qatar,
Turkey and the US condemns the Syrian government for the alleged
use of mercenaries against rebel forces.
The disagreement between Russia and Western powers has also
reappeared following the EU’s decision on an arms embargo in Syria and
Russia’s commitment to ship S-300 air defense systems to Syria.
This article originally appeared on: RT