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In First, 2 Sides in Syria Talks Hold a Meeting Face to Face Syria’s Shaky Peace Talks Move Toward Solid Ground in Effort to Aid Homs
(about 4 hours later)
GENEVA — The Syrian government and opposition held their first face-to-face meeting Saturday morning at the United Nations building here and were set to discuss a potential cease-fire in the afternoon, participants said, moving the fragile peace talks to a new stage after a bumpy beginning. GENEVA — The Syrian government and opposition moved their fragile peace talks to a newly concrete state on Saturday, meeting face to face here for the first time in an attempt to win government approval for an aid convoy to neighborhoods in the city of Homs long blockaded by the army.
The opposing teams sat across from each other at a U-shaped table and made eye contact but did not speak, listening as Lakhdar Brahimi, the international mediator for Syria, spoke about the agenda for the talks, said Obeida Nahas, a member of the opposition delegation. The United Nations special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said at a news conference here that the governor of Homs had met with United Nations employees inside the country and was consulting with security forces on whether a shipment of food and medicine could enter the rebel-held old city of Homs on Sunday or Monday. Most of Homs is controlled by the government, but some parts are contested.
The session lasted about 30 minutes, and the delegations left through separate doors to avoid contact, planning to resume in the afternoon to discuss the first order of business: a potential cease-fire in the central Syrian city of Homs to allow aid deliveries to reach areas long blockaded by the government. “The convoy is ready,” Mr. Brahimi said, adding that talks on Sunday would aim to agree on an exchange of prisoners held by the government and insurgent groups. “I hope it will be allowed tomorrow.”
Getting the two sides into the room required a prodigious effort by international mediators that lasted well into the early morning hours, even after Western diplomats had said the talks were ready to go, said Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syria correspondent for Al Hayat, a Saudi Arabian-owned newspaper, with longstanding contacts on both sides. If it materializes, the delivery of aid will be the first tangible success in talks that have been criticized by hard-liners on both sides; the first sign that the negotiations could make a difference in the lives of suffering Syrians.
He said the government delegation quibbled about the members of the opposition delegation. The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, had been insisting that the most senior member of the opposition team, Ahmad al-Jarba, attend the opening session to demonstrate seriousness and ensure that Mr. Moallem had an appropriately senior counterpart, Mr. Hamidi said. The government has routinely given approvals for aid deliveries to rebel-held areas, only to revoke them at the last minute, leaving parts of Homs and the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital, isolated for months amid increasing reports of deaths from malnutrition. Insurgents have also blockaded government-held areas, like the villages of Zahra and Nubol in Aleppo Province.
But such skirmishes over protocol appear to illustrate that the talks have achieved one of their extraordinarily modest goals: to get the two sides to recognize each other to some degree. The prospect of concrete results had people in Damascus and its suburbs glued to televisions screens on Saturday to follow the conference. They paid it more attention than had been expected, given Syrians’ mistrust of international conferences after nearly three years of fruitless meetings during a conflict that has killed more than 130,000 people.
At the same time, each side issued statements after the meeting that appeared intended to fend off criticism from their core supporters for attending. There was relative quiet in the suburbs on Saturday as several areas experimented with fragile localized cease-fires and awaited the outcome of talks, according to residents. Opposition activists said the government hit two suburbs with “barrel bombs,” which Mr. Brahimi called a violation of international law.
SANA, the Syrian state news agency, said the first session had taken place between the government and the “so-called coalition delegation,” quoting Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari, as saying, “The so-called opposition attended after changing its formation, which is new evidence of its confusion and dependency” on foreign powers. The choice of Homs as the first site of a humanitarian cease-fire to come out of the Geneva talks could prompt the government to object that it is being called upon to make greater concessions at the outset than its opponents, since rebels are not blockading government areas in Homs.
A coalition negotiatior, Anas al-Abdeh, told The Associated Press that it had been hard to “sit with the killers.” The main obstacle to getting the sides together has been disagreement over the protocols for the meeting, based on a previous conference called Geneva 1, which ask for the establishment of a transitional governing body “by mutual consent.” Asked what the government would have to gain from a deal in Homs, Louay Safi, a spokesman for the exile coalition representing the opposition in the talks, said: “When you feed people who are starving, it’s not about gain. Starvation should not be used as a weapon of war.”
The government has rejected any proposal that would mean the departure of President Bashar al-Assad, while the opposition says it cannot entertain the idea of his staying in power. A Western diplomat in Geneva said the government would gain by showing that it was being statesmanlike and responsible in addressing the humanitarian needs it has said are one of its top priorities at the talks. The government had proposed a cease-fire in the northern city of Aleppo, but opposition members said the deal was more like surrender.
The meeting went forward, Mr. Nahas said, because on Friday the government delegation gave an oral commitment to Mr. Brahimi that it accepted the Geneva 1 protocols. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential talks, one opposition member in Geneva said Homs was chosen in part for its significance as one of the first places where large protests broke out against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 and the site of the first major bombardments of rebel-held areas by the Syrian military in 2012.
Another opposition member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the group had decided to compromise and accept an oral commitment rather than a written one because it wanted the talks to begin. Also, he said, rebel groups in Homs are somewhat more cooperative with the coalition leadership than those in Aleppo, where jihadist groups have gained a stronger foothold. The coalition, dogged by its lack of influence over fractured insurgent groups on the ground, is loath to promise something at the talks that it cannot deliver.
None of the most senior members of the government delegation attended. Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Fayssal Mekdad, was seen entering the building, but Louay Safi, a spokesman for the opposition coalition, said neither Mr. Mekdad nor Mr. Moallem had taken part. Neither had the information minister nor a top adviser to President Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban. At least 4,000 civilians remain trapped in the blockaded neighborhoods along with rebel fighters, according to opposition negotiators and antigovernment activists in Homs. The government disputes that — at a news briefing, a reporter from the state-run SANA news agency asked Mr. Safi if the plan aimed “to save the terrorists in the old city.”
Mr. Jarba, the president of the main exile opposition group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, had said earlier that he would not attend, sending a chief negotiator in his place. Speaking from the old city of Homs via Skype, Hassan Abu al-Zain, a spokesman for the Revolution Youth Coalition there, said nine people had died of malnutrition, scores had been sickened by unclean water and families were eating weeds to survive. He said that he doubted that the government would follow through on commitments and that if it sought a truce in Homs it was “to control our area.”
“Today, we shall start with modest ideas, and we will build on them to achieve something,” Mr. Mekdad told reporters ahead of the meeting. “We move gradually to bigger and bigger issues.” But Abu Alaa, a paramedic in Homs, said via Skype that he hoped the deal would succeed, even though international talks have disappointed people there.
“We hope this doesn’t happen again, and we don’t become a log that they throw away after it gets burned,” said Abu Alaa, 24, who gave only a nickname for security reasons. He said the old city was sealed by concrete walls and guarded by government snipers.
A member of the Homs opposition council said it had provided the coalition on Saturday with a detailed plan for the aid delivery, obtained approval for a cease-fire from 15 rebel groups, and was awaiting answers from five more. But he expressed frustration that the coalition had not been well-informed on the situation in Homs and had asked for the information at the last minute.
The government’s most senior delegates — the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem; his deputy, Fayssal Mekdad; Bouthaina Shaaban, a longtime presidential adviser; and the information minister, Omran al-Zoubi — did not attend Saturday’s meetings, Mr. Brahimi said.
A Syrian journalist from a pro-government media outlet said the officials stayed away on the grounds of protocol, because the coalition’s president, Ahmad al-Jarba, did not attend, instead sending a chief negotiator. The government delegation was led by Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s United Nations representative.
American officials said the absences called into question the government’s seriousness. But the journalist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to represent the government, said the choice of delegates did not reflect any change in the government’s commitment to the talks.
Still, even such skirmishes over protocol appear to illustrate that the talks have achieved one of their extraordinarily modest goals: to get the two sides to recognize each other to some degree. The opposing teams met for three hours in two sessions, sitting across from each other at a U-shaped table. They made eye contact but did not speak, listening as Mr. Brahimi laid out the agenda. Later, each side spoke about the aid convoy, addressing their remarks to Mr. Brahimi.