BEIRUT: Syria’s foreign minister said yesterday it was too early to hold another United Nations-backed peace conference on Syria, indicating the dim prospects for diplomacy as a UN envoy wraps up three months of consultations on the war.
Walid Al Muallem also reiterated his government’s view that Iran’s support for Damascus would continue after its nuclear deal with world powers including the United States, which says President Bashar Al Assad must leave power.
He was speaking at a “conference against terrorism” in Damascus, sharing the podium with the visiting Iranian minister of culture and Islamic guidance and the deputy head of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the Syrian army in the four-year-old war.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who met Muallem in Damascus on Thursday, is due to brief the Security Council next week about his discussions with parties involved in the war.
The UN has hosted two major conferences on Syria since 2011, the last of which brought together the government and representatives of the opposition. Those talks ended in failure early last year.
“We think that going to Geneva 3 is premature unless the Syrians address their issues among themselves,” Muallem told a televised conference in Damascus.
He said the Syrian government welcomed the idea of more talks with members of the Syrian opposition hosted by Russia. Two such rounds of talks were held in Moscow earlier this year but were not attended by the main Western-backed opposition coalition or any of the armed groups fighting Assad.
In Brussels, members of that coalition and another opposition group said they were working on their own a “roadmap” for ending the war.
“The international community needs to force the regime to the negotiating table,” said Hadi Al Bahra, a member of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. Bahra said an international communique on Syria agreed three years ago - which called for political transition but left Assad’s role unresolved - needed to be revitalised.
Battlefield defeats for Assad this year had led some Western officials to believe it might be possible to reach an agreement that would see him eventually leave power and end the war that has killed a quarter of a million people.
But the setbacks also triggered renewed pledges of support for Assad from Iran, his main regional ally, which has not shown any change in stance towards Damascus. Hezbollah has said there is no political solution in the foreseeable future.
Moualem said Iran’s position towards Syria would not change, though “there are those in the West, foremost among them the United States, that believe this agreement will enable the West to influence Iranian positions towards the Syrian crisis”.
Assad’s other main foreign ally, Russia, is trying to bring about rapprochement between the Syrian government and regional states hostile to it — including Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The stated aim is to forge an alliance to fight Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria.
Late last month, President Vladimir Putin said Russian contacts with Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had showed all agreed on fighting the hardline Islamic State group in Syria. Putin called on Syria to begin a dialogue with such countries.
Muallem reiterated his view that forging such an alliance in the short term required “a miracle”. But he held open the possibility in the medium term, saying the threat of terrorism would force neighbouring states into an alliance with Damascus.
Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon brought up the idea of the coalition in comments published on Friday, saying Moscow wanted to bring Syria and Saudi Arabia closer together. Asked about such efforts, Alexander Zaspikin told Lebanese daily Annahar: “We are still at the beginning.”
Reuters
Brussels: Syria’s two main opposition groups settled longstanding differences yesterday to agree that President Bashar Al Assad must step down in any deal to end the country’s bloody conflict.
The issue has dogged efforts to get the exiled but widely recognised Syrian National Coalition and the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC), which is tolerated by the Syrian authorities, to agree a common platform.
The two groups said in a statement after a meeting in Brussels that peace “can be achieved through a political process undertaken by the Syrians themselves, under the auspices of the UN”.
This solution would involve “a fundamental and comprehensive change of the current political regime, including the head of the regime and all its leaders, pillars and security agencies.”
They said they had now “agreed a road map for the salvation of Syria, including the basic principles of a political settlement, to be adopted by their respective competent bodies.” This would be based on the 2012 Geneva accord which envisaged a transitional government of national unity with full powers to run the country and organise elections.
Up to now, the NCCDC had appeared to leave the door open for Assad to play a role in a transitional government but the National Coalition was bitterly opposed and restated that position again yesterday.
“We do not see any role for Assad or members of his government in a transitional body,” Hisham Marwa of the National Coalition told a press conference in Brussels after talks there. “They should be brought to justice and not be rewarded by being involved in any transitional body,” he said.
NCCDC executive bureau member Khalaf Dahowd said the most important thing was the overall agreement, not Assad’s role. “We have a political agreement which gathers all the political camps. We do not think these things should prevent us from finding common ground.”
His colleague Safwan Akkash said “Assad’s role is secondary” while the fate of other members of the regime “will be discussed.”
The NCCDC, which is also known as the National Coordination Body, is part of the country’s “tolerated” opposition, operating inside Syria but under tight restrictions. It has often been at odds with the National Coalition, accusing it of being beholden to outside interests.
Meanwhile, Syrian insurgents said they intensified shelling of a major army and security area in central Deraa yesterday in a new bid to capture government-held parts of the strategic city along the border with Jordan.
Last month, the Southern Front group attacked to drive remaining government forces from the city but the assault was beaten back by well entrenched government forces.
Like Aleppo, Deraa city is already partially under rebel control and largely surrounded by insurgent-held countryside. Southern Front group’s spokesman Isaam Al Rayyes said the latest offensive targeted a security zone in the centre of the city, which the Syrian army had turned into a fortified base.
Agencies
