A first round of peace talks on Syria ended on Friday with both sides in entrenched positions and the UN mediator expressed frustration that he had not even produced agreement for an aid.
After a week of talks at the UN headquarters in Geneva, the opposing sides in Syria’s civil war were still stuck on the question of how to proceed and agreement could not be reached for an aid convoy to rescue trapped civilians in a besieged city
Friday’s closing session was expected to be largely ceremonial, with government and opposition delegates expected to meet again around Feb. 10.
“I hope that in the next session, when we come back, we will be able to have a more structured discussion,” mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said.
He said he was “very, very disappointed” that a UN aid convoy was still waiting fruitlessly to enter the rebel-held Old City of Homs, where the U.S. says civilians are starving.
UN spokesman Jens Laerke said negotiations were still under way with both sides on the ground to try to get the aid convoy through.
“Unfortunately, I have just received an update that there is no movement on that convoy as of this morning.”
With no achievements on substance, diplomats say the priority now is just to keep the talks process going in the hope that hardline positions can be modified over time.
The first meeting between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and foes in three years of war began last week with an international conference at which both sides set out firm positions from which they never yielded.
The talks repeatedly seemed on the verge of collapse before they began, and just getting the delegates to sit in the same room was deemed an achievement.
The sides took a first tentative step forward on Wednesday by agreeing to use a 2012 document as a basis for discussions, but it was soon clear that they were still at odds.
Thursday’s final negotiating session began with a rare gesture of harmony when all sides observed a minute’s silence for the 130,000 people killed during the war.
“All stood up for the souls of the martyrs. Symbolically it was good,” opposition delegate Ahmad Jakal told Reuters.
But the sides quickly shifted back to their disputes. The government delegation accused the opposition of supporting terrorism for refusing to sign up to a resolution opposing it.
“We presented a proposal that the two sides might agree on the importance of combating violence and terrorism.
“The other side rejected it because they are involved in the issue of terrorism,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said.
Damascus uses the word “terrorist” to describe all rebel fighters; Western countries have declared some Islamist groups among the rebels, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to be terrorists but consider others to be legitimate fighters in the civil war.
The 2012 agenda adopted for the talks sets out stages to end the conflict, including a halt to fighting, delivery of aid and setting up a transitional government in which the opposition and its foreign allies say must exclude President Bashar al-Assad.
While the opposition wants to address the transitional body first, the government says the first step is to discuss terrorism.
US and Russian officials, co-sponsors of the conference, have been in Geneva respectively advising the opposition and government delegations.
The 2012 agenda was drawn up at a time when Western countries mainly believed Assad’s days were numbered.
But the past year has seen his position improve on the ground and diplomatically.
Meanwhile, carnage has continued, with nearly a third of Syria’s 22 million people driven from their homes and sectarian violence spreading to neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq.
NAN
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