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UN hosted Syria peace talks begin in Geneva UN-hosted Syria peace talks get off to shaky start
(about 4 hours later)
GENEVA — Indirect peace talks aimed at resolving Syria’s five-year conflict began Friday at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, without the participation of the main opposition group. GENEVA — Peace talks aimed at ending Syria’s five-year civil war got off to a shaky and chaotic start Friday, with the main opposition group at first boycotting the session, then later agreeing to meet with U.N. officials — while still insisting it would not negotiate.
The talks are the first since two rounds of negotiations collapsed in 2014. Syria’s conflict has killed more than 250,000 people, displaced millions and sent hundreds of thousands as refugees to Europe. That small commitment by the group known as the Higher Negotiating Committee came just minutes before U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura met with a delegation representing the government of President Bashar Assad.
The first meeting was between the U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura and a government delegation headed by the country’s ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja’afari. A U.N. spokesman said that de Mistura would later meet with other delegates, including civil society representatives. The developments gave a glimmer of hope that peace efforts in Syria might actually get off the ground for the first time since two earlier rounds of negotiations collapsed in 2014.
The main opposition delegation has said it will not participate in the talks without an end to the bombardment of civilians by Russian and government forces and a lifting of sieges in rebel-held areas. The conflict has killed at least 250,000 people, forced millions to flee the country, and given an opening to the Islamic State group to capture territory in Syria and Iraq. It has drawn in U.S. and Russia, as well as regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The meetings are part of a process outlined in a U.N. resolution last month that envisages an 18-month timetable for a political transition in Syria, including the drafting of a new constitution and elections. The HNC, a Saudi-backed bloc, had previously said it would not participate in the U.N.-sponsored talks without an end to the bombardment of civilians by Russian and Syrian government forces, a lifting of blockades in rebel-held areas and the release of detainees.
The opposition boycott is a blow to the U.N.’s attempt to bring representatives of President Bashar Assad’s government and his opponents together for the first time in two years. An HNC statement said the opposition decided to take part in the talks after receiving assurances from friendly countries about those humanitarian issues, and that a delegation headed by HNC chief Riad Hijab will leave Saudi Arabia for Geneva on Saturday.
Disputes are ongoing over which opposition parties will attend, with the main opposition group — known as the Higher Negotiating Committee, or HNC— coming under criticism for including the militant Army of Islam group, which controls wide areas near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and is considered a terrorist organization by the Syrian government and Russia. Only once their conditions are met will they negotiate, the statement added.
But the group is under intense pressure from the United States to participate in the talks. De Mistura said he had “good reason to believe” the HNC would join the talks Sunday, but refused to react formally until he got an official notice from its leadership.
Amid mounting pressure, a Western diplomat with close ties to the opposition group HNC said late Friday that two of the HNC’s representatives would be speaking to the media at a Geneva hotel not far from the U.N. offices where de Mistura and Ja’afari were meeting. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the press. “As you can imagine, I have been hearing rumors and information already,” de Mistura told reporters after meeting with the delegation led by Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari.
Earlier in the day, U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi reflected the sense of chaos and confusion surrounding the beginning of peace negotiations when he told reporters at a briefing that “I don’t have a time, I don’t have the exact location, and I can’t tell you anything about the delegation.” “What I will react to — that’s why I said I have reasons to believe — I will only react when I get a formal indication of that,” de Mistura said, “But that is a good signal.”
Ahmad Ramadan, a senior official with the Syrian National Coalition, which is part of the HNC, said the opposition will boycott the talks until it receives assurances on the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on lifting the sieges and halting bombardment of civilians in Syria. Speaking almost simultaneously at a hotel across town, HNC member Farah Atassi told reporters its delegation would arrive Saturday only to talk to U.N. officials about its demands after receiving some reassurances from the U.N., but “not to negotiate.”
“There cannot be any negotiations as long as the humanitarian issues have not been discussed or implemented,” he said. The decision came after many Western powers and Saudi Arabia — a major backer of the group — had pushed hard for the HNC to attend, diplomats said.
Ramadan said that de Mistura sent a letter on Thursday to the head of the HNC, Riad Hijab, which was deemed unsatisfactory. He and another opposition figure, Khaled Nasser, said the U.N. envoy wrote that the opposition’s demands were reasonable and that humanitarian issues should be “above negotiations,” but that he was powerless to implement them himself, adding that negotiations were the best way to force everyone to implement those resolutions. Disputes have arisen over which opposition parties will attend, with the HNC coming under criticism for including the militant Army of Islam group, which controls wide areas near the capital of Damascus, and is considered a terrorist organization by the Syrian government and Russia.
Basma Kodmani, a member of the opposition’s negotiating team, said the HNC is now studying whether their delegation will come to Geneva to raise these concerns with the U.N. officials or stay in Saudi Arabia where they can raise them from a distance. The largest Kurdish group in Syria, the Democratic Union Party or PYD, is not invited to the talks. Turkey considers the PYD to be a terrorist organization. Also not invited are the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.
In Syria, the official Tishrin newspaper boasted that the no-show by the Saudi and Turkey-backed opposition in Geneva “reflects the collective flight of terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey from the political table, following their collapses on the battlefield.” Opposition figures from outside the HNC also are in Geneva, but they were invited as advisers.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the moderate opposition was not attending the talks because Russia continues to bomb opposition-held areas in Syria, and that it is a “betrayal” to the moderate opposition to ask them to attend without a cease-fire. The meetings, billed as multiparty talks, are part of a process outlined in a U.N. resolution last month that envisions an 18-month timetable for a political transition in Syria, including the drafting of a new constitution and elections.
A Western diplomat in close contact with the SNC said in Geneva that the HNC’s “main message to us has been, ‘while we are under sustained attack by Russia and the regime and other states and militants and other groups we cannot justify to Syrians why we are going.’” De Mistura has decided that these will be “proximity talks,” rather than face-to-face sessions, meaning that he plans to keep the delegations in separate rooms and shuttle in between. He has tamped down expectations by saying he expects talks to last for six months.
“We tell them the reason to come here is not to hand the Assad regime a propaganda victory,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the opposition. U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi reflected the chaos and confusion earlier in the day when he told reporters that “I don’t have a time, I don’t have the exact location, and I can’t tell you anything about the delegation.”
Opposition figures from outside the HNC are in Geneva, but they were invited as advisers. The HNC is supposed to be the main opposition group in the talks. The initial refusal of the HNC to attend was slammed by Syria’s official Tishrin newspaper as reflecting “the collective flight of terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey from the political table, following their collapses on the battlefield.”
But a leading Syrian opposition figure who is not part of the HNC and is currently in Geneva hinted that his team will be part of the talks as a second opposition delegation. Ja’afari, the Syrian envoy, declined to speak to reporters as he left the meeting with de Mistura.
“The presence of three delegations expresses the will of the (U.N.) Security Council who called for a delegation representing all parties of the opposition,” former Syrian deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, said in an interview with The Associated Press. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the moderate opposition was not attending because Russia continues to bomb rebel-held areas in Syria, and that it is a “betrayal” to the moderates to ask them to attend without a cease-fire.
Jamil added that in their talks with the government the priority will be to allow aid into besieged areas and that all Syrians unite to “fight the terrorism represented by Nusra and Daesh.” He was referring to al-Qaida’s branch in Syria known as the Nusra Front and using an Arabic acronym to refer to the Islamic State group. Qadri Jamil, a former Syrian deputy prime minister who has become a leading opposition figure but is not part of the HNC, told The Associated Press that the priority was to allow aid into besieged areas.
De Mistura said Thursday that Geneva peace talks are “an opportunity not to be missed.” A Western diplomat in close contact with the SNC said in Geneva that the HNC’s “main message to us has been, ‘while we are under sustained attack by Russia and the regime and other states and militants and other groups, we cannot justify to Syrians why we are going.’” The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters on behalf of the opposition.
Reflecting the growing outside military presence in Syria, the Dutch government said Friday it plans to join the U.S.-led coalition targeting the Islamic State group in Syria with airstrikes.
The Dutch have for months been carrying out airstrikes in neighboring Iraq, but have balked at extending the mission to Syria. But after requests from the U.S. and France, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s two-party coalition government decided to broaden the mandate to eastern Syria.
Syrians trapped in the besieged town of Madaya are continuing to die of starvation despite shipments of aid this month, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said.
The town northeast of Damascus has been blockaded by government and allied militias for months and drew international attention when photos of emaciated children were published.
Citing local health workers, the group said 16 people have died there since three aid convoys arrived earlier this month.
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Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.