Syrian opposition talks in Istanbul have so far failed to unite liberal leaders and Islamists of the Syrian National Council. The opposition risks being unable to present a coherent front at the forthcoming Geneva conference, making it irrelevant.
The two opening days of negotiations of the Syrian opposition
have been fruitless as the Islamist-dominated Syrian National
Coalition refused to admit liberal opposition leaders into its
ranks.
Also, the opposition failed to elect a new leader of the coalition,
which remains without a chief since the resignation of Moaz
al-Khatib, a former Damascus religious leader, in March.
“We are back to square one,” a source in the Syrian National
Coalition (SNC) told Reuters before the start of the third day of
negotiations.
The source said the participants in the talks would now focus on
international demands for a broadening of the Islamist-dominated
group, leaving leadership issues for later.
Still, Syrian National Council representatives believe they could
take part in the peace conference — if their central demand for
President Bashar Assad to leave power is satisfied, Al Arabiya
reports.
Still, the leaders of the Syrian National Council believe they
could take part in the peace conference — if their central demand
for President Bashar Assad to leave power is satisfied, Al Arabiya
reports.
In an interview to British BBC the Syrian National Coalition’s
spokesman Louay Safi declared that President Assad and his
associates must leave the scene. He says only this condition will
be enough to make opposition participate in a peace conference.
“If the government will agree to the framework, yes [we will
participate]. We have welcomed the Geneva agreement from day one.
We would like to find a political solution. But we don’t want to be
deceived again by this regime, which has deceived us many
times,” Louay Safi said.
The spokesman has not specified, though, who would represent
lawful authorities of Syria at a peace conference in that case.
Earlier Moscow informed the international community that
Damascus had in principle agreed to take part in a peace conference
in Geneva.
Another conference, the ‘Friends of Syria’ gathering that took
place in Jordan’s Amman recently has brought nothing constructive
to the peace process in the war-torn Syria either.
Representational assembly attended by eleven top diplomats from
Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the US issued a number
of mutually exclusive statements.
On one hand the gathering declared it is seeking a political
solution and a diplomatic breakthrough to solve the Syrian crisis.
‘Friends of Syria’ welcomed the Russian-American initiative to
conduct new peace conference on Syria.
Yet in a joint declaration on May 22, the 11 participant
countries maintained that Syrian President Bashar Assad will play
no role in the country’s future. The declaration also stressed to
bolster support for the armed opposition until a transitional
government is formed.
“The participants (of the ‘Friends of Syria’ meeting), who
have declared themselves spokesperson for the Syrian people, have
blocked the way to the international conference by saying that they
were going to boost support to the Syrian opposition,” Syria’s
SANA news agency commented.
“Right now we see this process is making a negative contribution
to the [Geneva] decisions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
told reporters in Istanbul.
“When one party (Assad) is isolated in any mechanism set up
to deal with a conflict, we miss the ground for dialogue,” he
added.
After the ‘Friends of Syria’ gathering in Amman and opposition
meeting in Istanbul both have failed to propose any constructive
ideas how to put an end to the Syrian crisis, all eyes now are on
the US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov who are going to discuss peace talks in Syria next
Monday in Paris.
Russian diplomats, though, have voiced concerns that an
international conference on Syria in Geneva cannot be conducted
immediately because of the current status of the Syrian
opposition.
“The demands to urgently set a concrete date for the
conference in the absence of clarity regarding who and with what
powers will speak on behalf of the [Syrian] opposition just cannot
be treated seriously,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Aleksandr Lukashevich at a press briefing in Moscow.
When Russian FM will meet his American counterpart next week,
they will have to coordinate the list of participants of the future
peace conference. However the question now is who among the Syrian
opposition ranks would have authority to speak on behalf of all
variegated opposition groups.
This article originally appeared on: RT