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Russia Tells Syrian Opposition to Join Fight Against ‘Terrorism’ Syria Peace Talks Deadlock as Recriminations Fly
(about 5 hours later)
GENEVA — Russian officials accused the Syrian opposition’s Western backers on Friday of focusing solely on “regime change” and said the government would discuss political transition only if its opponents agreed on a joint fight against terrorism. GENEVA — The second round of Syria peace talks deadlocked in acrimony and frustration on Friday, as the government delegation appeared to rule out any compromise with the opposition, throwing the future of the negotiations into more doubt.
The declarations — unlikely to produce compromise because the government tends to define all its armed opponents, including those backed by the opposition delegation here, as terrorists — added to the state of suspense at peace talks that so far have produced no progress. The negotiations this week were the second round, and there is now uncertainty over whether there will be a third. Members of the opposition delegation called on the United States and Russia, the two major sponsors of the talks, to find ways to move forward, and said there was a small possibility of a final meeting between the antagonists on Saturday. But the prevailing mood was grim.
The statements came a day after a meeting of Russian, American and United Nations officials failed to produce a consensus on how to unblock the talks and push the parties toward substantive negotiations. The impasse in Geneva came as the United Nations human rights office warned of new deprivations and civilian uprooting inside Syria and antigovernment activists in the country reported new mayhem, including a large car bombing in the south that killed dozens and the execution of 21 people carried out by Al Qaeda-linked jihadists in the north.
The mood has grown increasingly grim here after a week of meetings produced no agreement even on an agenda, a failure that the United Nations mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, in unusually blunt comments at Thursday’s meeting, attributed squarely to the Syrian government, according to two Western diplomats. There had been some hope that the second round of talks in Geneva, which began on Monday, would make some progress on an agenda aimed at ending the nearly three-year-old conflict or at least finding a way to allow unfettered humanitarian aid to reach hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians in combat zones.
Mr. Brahimi, they said, complained that the Syrian delegation had refused to even touch, let alone read, a 24-point plan presented by the opposition on Wednesday on how to structure a political transition for Syria. Instead, they said, the government delegates left the paper on the table and walked away. The opposition delegation offered what appeared to be a significant compromise, or at least a softened tone, on Wednesday. While asserting in a 24-point proposal that the talks focus on creating a transitional government, the opposition’s language, for the first time, did not specifically demand that President Bashar al-Assad be excluded from such a government.
The opposition delegates have agreed to a compromise agenda that would simultaneously address their top priority — the formation of a fully empowered transitional governing body “by mutual consent” — and that of the government, which is to end violence and terrorism in Syria. But Mr. Assad’s negotiators, who have insisted that the talks should focus on fighting terrorism, did not even read the compromise, diplomats said.
But the government delegates have so far refused, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Friday seemed to back them up, declaring that the opposition and its backers appeared solely focused on deposing President Bashar al-Assad. Fayssal Mekdad, Syria’s deputy foreign minister and lead negotiator in the talks, said on Friday that all those who “carry arms against their people and their government are terrorists,” a position that appeared to rule out any common ground with Mr. Assad’s opponents.
“All they want to talk about is creating a transitional governing body,” Mr. Lavrov said, according to Russian news agencies. Mr. Mekdad also rebuked Valerie Amos, the United Nations relief coordinator, over her report to the Security Council on Wednesday. Although she blamed all sides for obstructing efforts to provide emergency food and medicine to Syrian civilians, she used her strongest language yet, denouncing attacks on aid workers and accusing both the government and the insurgents of flagrant violations of humanitarian law.
On Friday morning, as Mr. Brahimi met separately with the two sides, Gennady Gatilov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, who is attending the talks, suggested a way out. Mr. Mekdad called Ms. Amos’s comments “unacceptable,” signaling a new tension over the relief issue.
The government delegation would discuss the creation of a transitional governing body if the opposition formally committed to joining the government in battling “terrorism,” Mr. Gatilov said, according to the Russian news agencies. The opposition delegation, in its 24-point plan, gave prominent attention to ending violence in Syria by all sides, but did not use the word “terrorism.” The first point in the Geneva communiqué that is the basis for the current talks calls for ending violence in Syria, but it does not mention terrorism. It also calls, in the sixth point, for the formation of a transitional governing body “by mutual consent.” The Syrian opposition, backed by the United States and other Western powers, has accused Mr. Assad’s side of deliberately denying aid to civilians as part of a broader strategy to starve the insurgency into submission. But efforts to coerce the government to allow aid through a binding United Nations Security Council resolution are considered unclear at best.
Russia has supported the government’s insistence on discussing the points in order. Frustration has reached the point where John Kerry, the American secretary of state, said during a visit to China on Friday that President Obama had asked aides to develop new policy options on Syria.
Mr. Brahimi supports a parallel-track approach, and American officials had hoped for a Russian pledge to push Damascus to accept it, but that was not forthcoming. Mr. Gatilov simply told Mr. Brahimi, “Keep trying,” one Western diplomat said. Mr. Kerry did not elaborate on such options, but his remarks were seen as a possible effort to pressure Russia, Mr. Assad’s principal defender, to exert more influence on the Syrian government side.
Louay Safi, an opposition spokesman, said on Friday that the Russians, in a sideline meeting with opposition delegates on Thursday, had explicitly rejected the parallel approach. “They made it clear in all their meetings,” he said. Russian officials, for their part, accused the Syrian opposition’s Western backers on Friday of focusing solely on “regime change,” suggesting that Russia was unwilling or unable to soften the Syrian government’s negotiating position. Russian diplomats say they are not committed to maintaining Mr. Assad’s hold on power, but they insist on continuity in the government.
But the Western diplomat said that the Russians had not been so explicit, and had merely refused to propose concrete plans for persuading the Syrian government to negotiate. The United Nations diplomat who has been mediating the talks, Lakhdar Brahimi, signaled his own frustration with the Syrian government side on Thursday, according to two Western diplomats.
The Russians, he said, also rejected a proposal, supported by the Americans, to have a five-way meeting to try to resolve the impasse. It would include Mr. Brahimi, the two Syrian sides and their Russian and American backers. Mr. Brahimi, they said, had complained that the Syrian delegation refused to even touch, let alone read, the 24-point plan presented by the opposition on Wednesday. Instead, they said, the government delegates left the paper on the table and walked away.
The inability to even agree on an agenda was “a very bad omen” for the Geneva process, the diplomat said. The inability to even agree on an agenda was “a very bad omen” for the Geneva process, one Western diplomat said.
“We expected that the talks would be difficult,” he said. “We didn’t expect that they would be unable to compromise on an agenda, and that, frankly, is not good.”“We expected that the talks would be difficult,” he said. “We didn’t expect that they would be unable to compromise on an agenda, and that, frankly, is not good.”
Mr. Brahimi, he said, might call off the third round if he is concerned about his personal credibility in presiding over an empty process.Mr. Brahimi, he said, might call off the third round if he is concerned about his personal credibility in presiding over an empty process.
But other Western diplomats here noted that Mr. Brahimi is famously patient and that the Russians would not welcome a collapse of the talks that could be easily attributed to their allies, the Syrian government. But other Western diplomats here noted that Mr. Brahimi is famously patient and that the Russians would not welcome a collapse of the talks, particularly if it happened during the Winter Olympic Games underway in Sochi.
United Nations officials said Friday morning that Mr. Brahimi had concluded his separate meetings with the two sides, but gave no details, and it was unclear whether there would be more meetings on Saturday. No further Russian-American meetings are planned, diplomats said. At the United Nations on Friday, Security Council diplomats said they would meet later to discuss two competing draft resolutions on Syrian humanitarian aid: one from Russia, and a more strongly worded one from Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg. There was some hope that they could be reconciled, but the prospects were unclear.
In Syria, antigovernment activists and state television reported a car bomb exploded in the southern town of Yadouda near the Jordanian border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a network of contacts in the country, said at least 32 people were killed including 10 insurgents and a child.
The group also said the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a particularly violent Al Qaeda splinter group that has antagonized others in the Syrian insurgency, had executed 17 rival rebel fighters in the town of Haritan, northwest of Aleppo, and thrown their corpses into a well. Four others were reported beheaded in Azaz, another town north of Aleppo.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known by its acronym ISIS, has been increasingly blamed for worsening relations among anti-Assad group. Even the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, has denounced the group for its violent methods. Earlier this month Al Qaeda’s central leadership officially cut ties with ISIS.