Expectations are increasingly becoming low especially after one of the major opposition groups in the Syrian war said Wednesday it will only attend the imminent Geneva peace talks if the sieges in the country are lifted and other conditions are met, casting further uncertainty on the talks scheduled to begin in two days.
The U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has already described the start of a long term process of consultation between various parties to the conflict as not the actual peace negotiations between the warring sides.
The talks are meant to start a political process to end the conflict that began in 2011 as a largely peaceful uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule but escalated into an all-out war after a harsh state crackdown.
The plan calls for cease-fires in parallel to the talks, a new constitution and elections in a year and a half.
But there have been major tensions over who would be invited to the talks, and the opposition has demanded confidence-building measures from the government on humanitarian issues.
Kurds participation
The participation of Kurds is also further delaying the process for the talks to take place especially when Turkey rejected their inclusion.
Turkey, a major backer of the rebels, sees one of the main Syrian Kurdish group – the Democratic Union Party, or PYD and its YPG militia as branches of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, which has waged a long insurgency against Ankara. Turkey has threatened to boycott the talks if the PYD is represented.
The opposition has also accused Russia, a key backer of the Syrian government, of trying to “dictate” who from the opposition would participate.
Moscow has insisted on PYD’s participation. PYD plays an important role in fighting ISIS group and is an essential part of any political settlement in Syria.
‘No peace talks without Kurds’
The co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council, Haytham Manna, on Wednesday he would not take part in peace talks in Geneva unless two Kurdish leaders, Saleh Muslim and Ilham Ahmed, were also invited to participate.
“I’ll go with my friends or not (at all). There is no compromise in this question,” Manna told Reuters a day after the U.N. envoy to Syria, Staffan De Mistura, sent invitations to join the talks, without including the Kurdish leaders.
“We have one day and tomorrow perhaps also to negotiate all of these things with the Russians, the Americans and De Mistura’s staff. We’ll see if they accept our opinion, our view to have really a strong and representative delegation, we are ready to go.”
France: Kurds not invited
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France-Culture radio on Wednesday that the PYD was not invited and acknowledged there are several hurdles facing the talks including who will be present.
“The PYD group, the Kurdish group, was causing the most problems, and Mr. de Mistura told me he had not sent them an invitation letter,” Fabius said.
He said the Riyadh group should be the primary negotiator for the rebels.
The Riyadh group is a broad coalition that includes several armed Islamic groups, such as the powerful Jaish al-Islam and ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham faction, which the Russian and Syrian governments consider as terrorist groups. It does not, however, include the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group or Nursa Front, two militant factions that control large areas of Syria and are not participating in peace talks.
Deciding who among Syria’s fractured opposition should attend the talks has become the main stumbling block to the first attempt at a peace negotiation in two years. There is no sign of an end to the war pitting a range of rebel groups against President Bashar al-Assad’s government after almost five years and more than 250,000 deaths.
Agencies
