Tag Archives: Geneva

Syrian negotiators arrive for Geneva peace talks

Head of opposition delegation for the Geneva IV conference on Syria Nasr al-Hariri (C) arrives at the United Nations office in Geneva, Switzerland, February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syrian negotiators arrived separately to meet U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura in Geneva on Thursday in a low-key start to the first U.N.-led peace talks in almost a year.

Government negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. in New York, and lead opposition negotiator Nasr al-Hariri arrived separately at the U.N. office in Geneva, resuming negotiations that have been on hold since April 2016.

The scope of the talks has been cut down to core political questions since last year, after a new initiative by Russia, Turkey and Iran took thorny military issues off the Geneva agenda and transferred them to a separate process in the Kazakh capital Astana.

Previous attempts to negotiate an end to the almost six-year-old conflict collapsed as violence escalated, especially around the city of Aleppo, which is now totally under the control of forces loyal to Syria’s government.

The Astana talks have ushered in a shaky ceasefire which excludes hardline jihadist groups such as Islamic State.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes carried out air strikes on rebel-held areas in Deraa and Hama provinces on Thursday and insurgents fired rockets at government targets. But the overall level of violence in western Syria was lower than in previous days.

A western diplomat said the opposition was aware that eastern Ghouta, a besieged rebel area on the outskirts of Damascus, was vulnerable to a government offensive. But opposition negotiators were not going to buckle under military pressure and walk out of talks, as in previous rounds.

“They know that Ghouta’s in trouble,” the diplomat said.

De Mistura plans to discuss Syria’s future governance arrangements, the process for drafting a new constitution, and a schedule for elections under U.N. supervision, as mandated by a U.N. resolution.

He has declined to say whether he will try to unify opposition groups in a single delegation for direct talks with the government.

He plans to welcome the delegations later on Thursday in the presence of diplomats, raising the prospect that he might bring the warring sides together in one room.

“The plan is to have some kind of opening ceremony in which he welcomes the parties,” the Western diplomat said.

Geneva talks in April last year never brought the negotiators together. Instead, de Mistura met the delegations in rotation, seeking points of common ground.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

U.N. plans next round of Syria peace talks February 20

People walk past damaged shops in Aleppo Syria

By Ned Parker

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The next round of United Nations-based peace talks on Syria have been scheduled for Feb. 20, diplomats told reporters on Tuesday.

The talks had been planned to begin in Geneva on Feb. 8 but Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that they had been postponed.

The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said on Tuesday that he had decided to delay the UN-sponsored talks in order to take advantage of last week’s negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition in Astana, Kazakhstan, hosted by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran.

The Astana talks ended with Moscow, Ankara and Tehran agreeing to monitor Syrian government and opposition compliance with a Dec. 30 truce.

“We want to give a chance to this Astana initiative to actually implement itself,” de Mistura told reporters outside the Security Council. “If the ceasefire becomes as solid as we hope, that will only help the serious talk to achieve the concrete.”

He added invitations for the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva would go out on Feb. 8. If the Syrian opposition cannot agree on its delegates, de Mistura said the UN would choose the opposition’s representatives “in order to make sure that it can be as inclusive as possible.”

De Mistura said the United Nations would be attending a follow up technical meeting on Feb. 6 of the Russia, Iran and Turkey backed talks in Astana on the implementation and monitoring of the Syria ceasefire.

(Reporting by Ned Parker; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. and Russia meet in Geneva on Aleppo

A rebel fighter stands near a Turkish tank as it fires towards Guzhe village, northern Aleppo countryside, Syria

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Senior U.S. and Russian officials held talks on Wednesday aimed at agreeing on how to separate al Qaeda-linked militants from rebel fighters in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo so as to pave the way for a ceasefire.

U.S. special envoy for Syria Michael Ratney led Washington’s delegation, while Moscow sent military experts whose names were not released.

They were joined by officials from regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but not Syria’s ally Iran which was not invited, a Western diplomat said. The Syrian warring sides themselves were not at the table.

“The idea is to engage the Russians in a discussion on the issue,” the Western diplomat said before the meeting held at the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva.

The talks follow a meeting between the United States and its allies on Tuesday that aimed to coordinate efforts toward a new ceasefire, after Russia unexpectedly announced it had halted air strikes on Aleppo.

Russia favors a U.N. proposal to evacuate jihadist fighters belonging to the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group from the besieged zone of eastern Aleppo in return for a ceasefire.

Russia has said a planned eight-hour ceasefire on Thursday will be extended if other rebels clearly distance themselves from the group, but it will not prolong the pause unilaterally.

The last ceasefire fell apart in September, since when Russia and Syria have undertaken a massive bombing campaign on eastern Aleppo, in which hospitals have been destroyed and hundreds of civilians killed.

Britain has triggered a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council to be held on Friday. A draft resolution seen by Reuters calls for an independent special inquiry which would name those responsible for breaking international law, including possible crimes against humanity.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad argues that his forces have a constitutional duty to protect the civilian population and rid the city of “terrorists”.

The task of separating “moderate” rebels from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which was formerly known as the Nusra Front and is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.N., is complicated because they have long fought side-by-side and there is little agreement on the number of Fateh al-Sham fighters in the city.

The U.N. says there are up to 900 Jabhat Fateh al-Sham fighters out of 8,000 rebels in eastern Aleppo in total, but diplomatic sources have told Reuters there are far fewer, probably a maximum of 200.

“They are calling the shots in Aleppo,” one aid official told Reuters.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Tom Miles and Dominic Evans)

Syrian peace talks limp on to next week without opposition

Syrian Peace Talks

By John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. special envoy for Syria has vowed to take fragile peace talks into next week despite a walkout by the main armed opposition, a breakdown in a truce and signs that both sides are gearing up to escalate the five-year-old civil war.

Staffan de Mistura, who dismissed the opposition’s departure as “diplomatic posturing”, expected the delegation to return to the negotiating table. The opposition declared a “pause” this week because of a surge in fighting and too little movement from the government side on freeing detainees or allowing in aid.

Asked whether talks would carry on, de Mistura said on Thursday night: “We cannot let this drop. We have to renew the ceasefire, we have to accelerate humanitarian aid and we are going to ask the countries which are the co-sponsors to meet.”

The talks at U.N. headquarters in Geneva aim to halt a conflict that has allowed for the rise of the Islamic State group, sucked in regional and major powers and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

In an interview with French-language Radio Television Suisse (RTS), de Mistura said 400,000 people had been killed in the war, far higher than the previous U.N. toll which has varied from 250,000 to 300,000.

The war was tilted in Assad’s favor late last year by Russia’s intervention, supported on the ground by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who have been bolstered recently by the arrival of members of Iran’s regular army.

WASHINGTON CONCERNED BY RUSSIAN MOVES

The White House has expressed concern that Russia has repositioned artillery near the disputed city of Aleppo.

The Russian military moves have sharpened divisions in Washington over whether President Vladimir Putin genuinely backs the U.N.-led initiative to end the war or is using the talks to mask renewed military support for Assad.

“The regime is so reliant on external support that it is inconceivable that its allies don’t have the leverage to change its approach,” Britain’s envoy to the Syria peace talks, Gareth Bayley, said on Friday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the decision by the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to quit Geneva was not a loss for anyone except the HNC itself.

“If they want to ensure their participation (in the peace talks) only by putting ultimatums, with which others must agree, it’s their problem,” Lavrov said, adding:

“For God’s sake, we shouldn’t be running after them, we must work with those who think not about their career, not about how to please their sponsors abroad, but with those who are ready to think about the destiny of their country.”

The head of the Syrian delegation, Bashar Ja’afari, confirmed he met de Mistura to discuss humanitarian issues on Friday and would be meeting with him again on Monday.

Moscow and Washington sponsored the fragile cessation of hostilities that went into effect on Feb. 27 to allow talks to take place but has been left in tatters by increased fighting in the past week.

In Aleppo, government air strikes in different parts of the city killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens more on Friday, with the death toll expected to rise due to serious injuries, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Further southwest in Hama province, warplanes targeted rebel-held areas in the strategic Ghab plain that borders Latakia province, Assad’s coastal heartland.

Insurgents announced a new battle in Latakia earlier this week which they said was in response to ceasefire violations by the government side, launching fierce assaults there. Fighting raged in the area on Friday, said the British-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict with a network of sources on the ground.

ASSAD MAIN ISSUE

Endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, the Geneva peace talks marked the most serious effort yet to resolve the war, but failed to make progress on political issues, with no sign of compromise over the question of Assad’s future.

Government negotiators say Assad’s presidency is non-negotiable. Underlining confidence in Damascus, a top Assad aide reiterated its view that local truce agreements and “destroying terrorism” were the way toward a political solution.

The opposition wants a political transition without Assad, and says the government has failed to make goodwill measures such as releasing detainees and allowing enough aid into opposition-held areas besieged by the military.

The HNC, which is backed by Western nations and key Arab states, had this week urged more military support for rebels after declaring the truce was over and said talks would not re-start until the government stopped committing “massacres”.

All the main HNC members had left Geneva by Friday, leaving a handful of experts and a point of contact behind.

With violence escalating, peace talks might not resume for at least a year if they are abandoned, one senior Western diplomat said.

Syria is now a patchwork of areas controlled by the government, an array of rebel groups, Islamic State, and the well-organized Kurdish YPG militia.

On Friday, rare clashes between YPG fighters and government-allied forces and militiamen took place for nearly a third day, the Observatory said, in fighting which a Syrian Kurdish official said had killed 26 combatants. Kurdish and government forces have mostly avoided confrontation in the past.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Geneva; writing by Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff)