UNITED ONLY BY HATRED

Disagreements over who should come and on what terms which could not be resolved in time has hindered talks aimed at ending the five-year civil war that has claimed more than 250,000 lives and displaced 12m people scheduled for January 25th in Geneva.

At some point, it looked as if the talks could at last get under way on January 29th. But as the veteran diplomat ruefully conceded on Monday, threats to pull out should be expected: “Don’t be surprised: there will be a lot of posturing, a lot of walkouts and walk-ins, you should neither be depressed nor impressed. The important thing is to keep momentum.” As reported by The Economist.

Predecessors to Mr de Mistura gave up after peace conferences they had convened got nowhere as even that current limited goal may prove dauntingly hard to achieve. Hopes of some progress this time were raised after a meeting of the 17-country International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in Vienna in November, which was followed by a UN Security Council resolution calling for talks to start in January that would lead to a “credible” transitional government in place by July this year. Fair elections based on a new constitution would be held by the middle of 2017. Besides the start of the talks, it will be a miracle if any of those other milestones are met. Mr de Mistura admits that the participants are united only by mutual loathing. At the beginning of what he sees as a six-month process the groups will be kept in separate rooms, while he shuttles between them in a search for something they can agree on.

Failure to agree on which groups should be invited as representatives of the Syrian opposition caused for the postponement of the talks. Gamely, Mr de Mistura sent out formal invitations to his diplomatic dance on January 26th. Hotel bookings have been made and a few TV camera crews have turned up in Geneva, but confusion reigns.

Under the auspices of Saudi Arabia, a High Negotiations Committee (HNC) has been established to represent the many rebel factions at the talks. But although it excludes both Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, it includes hard-line Salafist outfits, such as Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, which collaborate with Jabhat Al-Nusra and which explicitly rule out the principles of democratic pluralism outlined in the ISSG’s Vienna communiqué. The military commander of Jaish al-Islam, Zahran Alloush, was killed by an air strike on December 25th, but the group’s political leader, Muhammad Alloush, has been chosen as the HNC’s chief negotiator in Geneva.

The Syrian government tends to regard any opposition figure who has ever carried an AK47 as a “terrorist”, but it is supported by its allies Iran and Russia in wanting Ahrar and Jaish kept out of the talks. However, Russia is demanding the inclusion of other individuals and groups, such as the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, whose YPG militias are fighting both the regime and Islamic State to carve out an autonomous region in the north-east of the country along the Turkish border. Turkey says it will pull out if the Kurds are at the table because they are allied with a Turkish terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Bowing to pressure, Mr de Mistura did not invite the Kurds.

A further problem is that parts of the Sunni Arab coalition say they will not attend unless there is a halt to air strikes by the regime and the Russians and the lifting of sieges in rebel-held territory where civilians are starving. They point out that these are confidence-building measures required by the UN resolution. But although Mr de Mistura bemoans the squabbles over participation as a distraction from more important issues, he is pleading for people to turn up in Geneva without preconditions.