Tag Archives: Syria Peace Talks

Key powers mulling possibility of federal division of Syria

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Major powers close to U.N.-brokered peace talks on Syria are discussing the possibility of a federal division of the war-torn country that would maintain its unity as a single state while granting broad autonomy to regional authorities, diplomats said.

The resumption of Geneva peace talks is coinciding with the fifth anniversary of a conflict that began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad before descending into a multi-sided civil war that has drawn in foreign governments and allowed the growth of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.

Fighting in Syria has slowed considerably since a fragile “cessation of hostilities agreement” brokered by the United States and Russia came into force almost two weeks ago. But an actual peace deal and proper ceasefire remain elusive.

As the United Nations’ peace mediator Staffan de Mistura prepares to meet with delegations from the Syrian government and opposition, one of the ideas receiving serious attention at the moment is a possible federal division of Syria.

Neither the opposition nor government has confirmed its participation in the latest round of peace talks in Switzerland.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.N. Security Council diplomat said some major Western powers, not only Russia, have also been considering the possibility of a federal structure for Syria and have passed on ideas to de Mistura.

“While insisting on retaining the territorial integrity of Syria, so continuing to keep it as a single country, of course there are all sorts of different models of a federal structure that would, in some models, have a very, very loose center and a lot of autonomy for different regions,” the diplomat said.

He offered no details about the models of a federal division of authority that could be applied to Syria. Another council diplomat confirmed the remarks.

OPPOSITION DISLIKES FEDERALISM

The biggest sticking point in the peace talks remains the fate of Assad, who Western and Gulf Arab governments insist must go at the end of a transition period envisioned under a roadmap hammered out in Vienna last year by major powers. Assad’s backers Russia and Iran say Syrians themselves must decide.

After five years of civil war that has killed 250,000 people and driven some 11 million from their homes, Syria’s territory is already effectively split between various parties, including the government and its allies, Western-backed Kurds, opposition groups and Islamic State militants.

This week, Syria’s Saudi Arabian-backed opposition rejected a suggestion by Russia, which like Iran supports Assad’s government and has intervened militarily on its side, that the peace talks could agree a federal structure for the country.

“Any mention of this federalism or something which might present a direction for dividing Syria is not acceptable at all. We have agreed we will expand non-central government in a future Syria, but not any kind of federalism or division,” Syrian opposition coordinator Riad Hijab said.

But the idea of federalism for Syria has not been ruled out. In an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, de Mistura said “all Syrians have rejected division (of Syria) and federalism can be discussed at the negotiations.”

In a September interview Assad did not rule out the idea of federalism when asked about it, but said any change must be a result of dialogue among Syrians and a referendum to introduce the necessary changes to the constitution.

“From our side, when the Syrian people are ready to move in a certain direction, we will naturally agree to this,” he said at the time.

The co-leader of Syrian Kurdish PYD party, which exercises wide influence over Kurdish areas of Syria, has made clear the PYD was open to the idea.

“What you call it isn’t important,” PYD’s Saleh Muslim told Reuters on Tuesday. “We have said over and over again that we want a decentralized Syria – call it administrations, call it federalism – everything is possible.”

The next round of Syria peace talks is not expected to run beyond March 24. After that round ends, there is expected to be a break of a week or 10 days before they resume.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Syria opposition sees fewer truce breaches, U.N. prepares talks

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian opposition said on Wednesday there had been fewer breaches of a truce agreement by the government and its allies in the past day as a U.N. envoy unveiled plans to resume peace talks next week.

The “cessation of hostilities agreement” brokered by the United States and Russia has slowed the war considerably despite accusations of violations on all sides, preparing the ground for talks which the United Nations plans to convene in Geneva.

The talks will coincide with the fifth anniversary of a conflict that began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad before descending into a multi-sided war that has drawn in foreign governments and allowed the growth of Islamic State.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said he planned to launch substantive peace talks on Monday, focusing on issues of Syria’s future governance, elections within 18 months, and a new constitution.

While the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) has yet to declare whether it will attend, spokesman Salem al-Muslat said it was positive that the talks would “start … with discussion of the matter of political transition”.

He said the HNC would announce its decision very soon.

The Syrian government, its position strengthened by more than five months of Russian air strikes, has also yet to say whether it will attend. There was no immediate response from Damascus to de Mistura’s remarks. The Syrian foreign minister is due to give a news conference on Saturday at noon.

Peace talks convened in Geneva two years ago collapsed as the sides’ were unable to agree an agenda: Damascus wanted a focus on fighting terrorism – the term it uses for the rebellion – while the opposition wanted talks on transitional government.

TALKS ABORTED

De Mistura aborted a previous attempt to hold talks on Feb. 3 and urged countries in the International Syria Support Group, led by the United States and Russia, to do more preparatory work.

The result was the cessation of hostilities which Western governments say has largely held since it came into effect on Feb. 27. It has been accompanied by more aid deliveries to opposition areas besieged by government forces, though fighting has continued in some important areas of northwestern Syria.

Rebel groups fighting to topple Assad had initially said they would support a two-week halt to the fighting. De Mistura said on Wednesday however that it was an “open-ended concept”.

The next round of talks would not run beyond March 24. There would then be a break of a week or 10 days before resuming.

Asked if the talks could be delayed further from an original start date of March 7, de Mistura said the format gave him a lot of flexibility.

Jan Egeland, who chairs the Syria humanitarian task force, said the United Nations had delivered aid to 10 of 18 besieged areas across the country in the last four weeks, and was working to overcome obstacles and reach remaining areas.

The truce agreement, accepted by Assad’s government and many of his enemies, was the first of its kind in a war that has killed more than 250,000 people and caused a major refugee crisis.

The agreement has not been directly signed by the warring parties and is less binding than a formal ceasefire. It does not cover Islamic State or the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, whose fighters are deployed in western Syria in close proximity to rebel groups that have agreed to cease fire.

Russia says it has recorded opposition violations including supplies of weapons via Turkey to rebels in Syria.

FEWER VIOLATIONS

Muslat of the HNC said: “The violations of the truce were great at the start, but yesterday they were much fewer. There are perhaps some positive matters that we are seeing.”

Speaking to Reuters, he said a government blockade of the Damascus suburb of Daraya must be lifted in order to “pave the way to the start of negotiations”. He added this was not a condition for the attending talks but a humanitarian requirement.

Despite the relative success of the cessation of hostilities, the peace talks face great challenges, including the question of Assad’s future.

The opposition says Assad must be removed from power at the start of a transition, while some of his Western enemies have backed away from that position, saying he must go at some point.

Russia has said that the matter should not be predetermined and Syrians should be left to choose. Assad has meanwhile ruled out anything that contravene the constitution, including the idea of a transitional governing body sought by the opposition.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-JubeIr reiterated his government’s tough line on Assad, who has also been boosted by Iranian military support. Saudi Arabia, which is in conflict with Iran across the region, has been a major sponsor of the Syrian insurgency.

“The choice for Bashar al-Assad is to either leave through a political process or the Syrian people will continue to fight until militarily they oust him,” Jubeir said.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneval; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Syrian rebels see flaws in U.S.-Russia truce plan

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United States and Russia announced plans for a ‘cessation of hostilities’ in Syria that would take effect on Saturday but exclude groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, a loophole that Syrian rebels immediately highlighted as a problem.

Monday’s agreement, described by a U.N. spokesman as “a first step towards a more durable ceasefire”, is the fruit of intensive diplomacy between Washington and Moscow, which back opposing sides in the five-year-old civil war that has killed more than a quarter of a million people.

Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin discussed the accord by phone, and the Kremlin leader said it could “radically transform the crisis situation in Syria”. The White House said it could help advance talks on bringing about political change in Syria.

To succeed, the deal will require both countries to persuade their allies on the ground to comply.

It allows the Syrian army and allied forces, as well as Syrian opposition fighters, to respond with “proportionate use of force” in self-defense. And it leaves a significant loophole by allowing continued attacks, including air strikes, against Islamic State, Nusra and other militant groups.

Bashar al-Zoubi, head of the political office of the Yarmouk Army, part of the rebel Free Syrian Army, said this would provide cover for President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies to continue to attack opposition-held territory where rebel and militant factions are tightly packed.

“Russia and the regime will target the areas of the revolutionaries on the pretext of the Nusra Front’s presence, and you know how mixed those areas are, and if this happens, the truce will collapse,” he said.

“CRITICAL ISSUE”

Since intervening with air strikes in support of Assad in September, Russia has helped pave the way for significant advances by government forces in a conflict that has sucked in a host of world and regional powers.

The Syrian army is backed by Moscow, Iran and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah; ranged against them are rebels supported by the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

A joint U.S.-Russian statement said the two countries and others would work together to delineate the territory held by Islamic State, Nusra Front and the other militant groups excluded from the truce.

But rebel officials said it was impossible to pinpoint positions held by Nusra.

“For us, al-Nusra is a problematic point, because al-Nusra is not only present in Idlib, but also in Aleppo, in Damascus and in the south. The critical issue here is that civilians or the Free Syrian Army could be targeted under the pretext of targeting al-Nusra,” said a senior opposition figure, Khaled Khoja.

He said the cessation would be for an initial two weeks and “could be extended indefinitely if the parties commit to it.”

The main opposition body, the High Negotiations Committee, was convening a meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Monday to discuss the truce.

Assad said on Saturday he was ready for a ceasefire, on condition that opposition forces he describes as terrorists did not use a lull in fighting to their advantage, and that countries backing insurgents halted support for them.

In a sign of confidence, reflecting his growing momentum on the battlefield, Assad on Monday called a parliamentary election for April 13. The timing was not a surprise as elections are held every four years and the last one was in 2012.

A U.N. Security Council resolution in December called for elections within 18 months under a new constitution, and administered by the United Nations.

TALKS “VERY SOON”

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed the U.S.-Russian announcement, which follows a failed attempt by his Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura last month to restart peace talks in Geneva.

“The Secretary-General strongly urges the parties to abide by the terms of the agreement,” Ban’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Much work now lies ahead to ensure its implementation.”

De Mistura told Reuters the cessation accord could allow a resumption of negotiations. “We can now relaunch very soon the political process which is needed to end this conflict,” he said.

In a guarded reaction, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told Reuters he was “not pessimistic”.

Under the terms of the cessation, parties would indicate their agreement to the United States and Russia by noon on Friday Damascus time (1000 GMT), and the truce would go into effect at midnight, the two countries said.

Syrian government and allied forces will cease attacks against armed opposition forces, and vice versa, with any weapons including rockets, mortars, anti-tank guided missiles.

The agreement does not spell out in detail how the truce will be monitored, let alone enforced. While the United States and Russia will establish a communication “hotline” and encourage others to share information about violations, they have yet to make explicit how they plan to do so.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said there were “significant challenges ahead”. He urged all parties to accept the terms of the deal, which he said could reduce the violence and help get aid to besieged areas.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, in a speech aboard a U.S. navy ship visiting Israel as part of a joint military drill, said: “It is difficult to see a stable ceasefire in actuality, with all players agreeing to it.”

NO LET-UP

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said fighting and air strikes continued unabated across Syria on Monday.

Islamic State attacked the Syrian government’s main supply route from Damascus to the northern city of Aleppo, a day after the group targeted Damascus and Homs in some of the bloodiest car bomb attacks of the war.

A rebel fighting government forces and Kurdish militia in the Aleppo area said there was no sign of a let-up. “The battles are in full force,” he told Reuters.

Fred Hof, a former State Department Syria specialist now at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, said the proposed timetable gave Russia, Iran and Syria five more days to complete the encirclement of rebels in Aleppo.

“Indeed, success of this initiative – including widespread humanitarian relief for Syrian civilians – requires good faith and decency by three parties who have shown little or none during the duration of this crisis,” Hof said. “Let’s hope they change their spots.”

In a report published on Monday, a U.N.-backed panel said war crimes were widespread, and Syrian government forces and Islamic State militants continued to commit crimes against humanity in the face of inaction by the international community.

“Flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law continue unabated, aggravated by blatant impunity,” the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Jonathan Landay, Dasha Afanasieva, Jason Bush, Lisa Barrington, Omar Fahmy, Louis Charbonneau and Dan Williams; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Gloom at Syria talks as Russia backs government advance

MUNICH (Reuters) – Major powers began a new round of Syria talks on Thursday focusing on calls for a ceasefire and access for aid, but the mood was dour with Moscow showing no sign of calling off its bombing in support of a massive new government advance.

With the Syrian opposition saying it cannot accept a truce because it does not trust the Russians, diplomats saw little chance of progress.

The first peace talks in two years collapsed last week before they began in the face of the government offensive, one of the biggest and most consequential of the five-year war.

Thursday’s meeting in the German city of Munich was meant to allow powers to coordinate support for ongoing negotiations, but instead has turned into a desperate bid to ressurrect them.

A Western diplomat told Reuters that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wanted an immediate ceasefire in Syria – “All or nothing”. Moscow, however, had proposed a truce that would begin only from the start of next month, giving its Damascus allies 18 more days to recapture Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city.

Western powers were hopeful wording could be agreed that at the very least would allow more access for aid to besieged areas.

“Here we need something of a breakthrough,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “Today, we will try what has not been achieved so far especially, to get better supplies to people locked in Syria and link this to first steps in a significant reduction of violence.”

But a senior Western diplomat summed up the pessimistic outlook: “This meeting risks being endless and I fear the results will be extremely small.”

Russia’s intervention on the battlefield on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad since last October has swung the momentum. The latest advance over the past two weeks has seen government forces and allies rout rebels and come close to encircling Aleppo, a divided city half held by rebels for years.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met Kerry ahead of the talks, said Moscow had submitted proposals for a ceasefire and was awaiting a response from other powers. But Western officials do not expect Moscow to accept the immediate halt to bombing Washington seeks.

Kerry said he expected a “serious conversation”.

“Obviously, at some point in time, we want to make progress on the issues of humanitarian access and ceasefire,” Kerry said.

Russia is widely viewed as unlikely to halt support for the government advance until Damascus achieves its two main objectives: recapturing Aleppo and sealing the Turkish border, for years the lifeline for rebel-held areas.

That would amount to the most decisive victory of the war so far, and probably put an end to rebel hopes of removing Assad by force, their goal throughout five years of fighting that has killed 250,000 people and driven 11 million from their homes.

“The goal is to totally liberate Aleppo and then to seal the northern border with Turkey,” said Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trend Studies in Moscow, explaining the Russian government thinking. “The offensive should not be stopped – that would be tantamount to defeat.”

“RISKS BEING ENDLESS”

Washington is leading its own air campaign against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria and northern Iraq, but has resisted calls to intervene in the main battlefields of Syria’s civil war in the west of the country, where the government is mostly fighting against other insurgent groups.

That has left the field to the Russians, who support Assad against an array of rebel groups backed by Turkey, Arab states and the West.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter drew a distinction between the two main zones of the conflict, saying Islamic State would have to be defeated “whatever happens with the Syrian civil war”.

In further evidence of the complexity of a multi-sided civil war that has drawn in regional and global powers, Russia provided air support for Kurdish fighters who overran a military air base that had been in the hands of Syrian rebels since 2013.

The Syrian Kurds have worked with the United States against Islamic State, but are opposed by Turkey, Washington’s NATO ally. The Kurds now appear to be taking advantage of the government advance to expand territory by capturing the Menagh base near the Turkish border.

One rebel commander, Zekeriya Karsli from the Levant Front, said: “The fall of Menagh airport has made the situation on the ground pretty grim.”

Saudi Arabia, which backs some of the rebels that Moscow is helping to defeat, has floated the idea of sending ground troops to help the U.S. effort against Islamic State. This was criticised by Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who said it could make the war permanent.

“All sides must be compelled to sit at the negotiating table instead of unleashing a new world war,” he told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper.

RUSSIANS AS MEDIATORS

Syria’s national reconciliation minister, Ali Haidar, suggested Moscow was playing a bigger role on the ground than just offering air strikes and military aid: Russian mediators were helping the government broker local deals with rebels willing to lay down weapons or relocate.

“The truth is that since the presence of the Russians on Syrian land, they can play the role of mediator in some areas,” Haidar told Reuters at his offices in Damascus.

The Russian-backed government assault has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing towards the Turkish border. The United Nations has said it fears for 300,000 people still trapped in Aleppo.

In a speech, President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey’s patience may run out and Ankara may have to take action, but gave no details of what he meant. Erdogan called on the United Nations to prevent “ethnic cleansing”, saying as many as 600,000 more refugees could arrive.

The refugee crisis has had far-reaching impact across Europe, where Syrian refugees were the bulk of the biggest wave of migrants since World War Two to reach the European Union.

The NATO alliance announced a new sea mission to help Turkey and Greece crack down on criminal networks smuggling refugees from Turkey into Europe, after thousands drowned and hundreds of thousands made the journey last year.

Turkey has already taken in 2.6 million Syrians, the largest refugee population on earth, and has agreed to help keep them from travelling into Europe in return for aid. Erdogan warned that Turkey could “open the gates” for refugees into Europe if it did not receive enough help.

The United Nations and the European Union, which has agreed a 3-billion-euro fund to improve conditions for refugees in Turkey, have both urged Ankara to admit those fleeing the latest fighting.

“They struck Aleppo so we fled. First we escaped to another village. We’ve gone to every village. But they’re bombing everywhere so we came here,” said Musa Ibrahim Isa, one of the tens of thousands of people at Bab al-Salama, on the Syrian side of the border.

“Our only wish from God is that these gates be opened.”

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Denis Dyomkin; Writing by Giles Elgood and Peter Graff; Editing by Peter Millership and Andrew Heavens)

Syrian opposition to go to Geneva as peace talks open

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s main opposition group agreed to travel to Geneva, where the United Nations on Friday opened peace talks to end the country’s five-year-old war, but said it wanted to discuss humanitarian issues before engaging in political negotiations.

On the ground, opponents of President Bashar al-Assad said they were facing a Russian-backed military onslaught, with hundreds of civilians reported to be fleeing as the Syrian army and allied militia tried to capture a suburb of Damascus and finish off rebels defending it.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura had invited the Syrian government and an opposition umbrella group to Geneva for “proximity talks”, in which they would meet in separate rooms.
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Until the last minute, the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) had refused to go. The group, which includes both armed and political opponents of Assad, had insisted it wanted an end to air strikes and sieges of towns and the release of detainees before talks could start.

Late on Friday, the HNC said it was going to Geneva, having received guarantees that its demands, outlined in a U.N. Security Council resolution last month, would be met, but it made clear its engagement in the process would initially be limited.

“The HNC will go to Geneva tomorrow to discuss these humanitarian issues which will pave the way into the political process of negotiations,” spokesman Salim al-Muslat told the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya al-Hadath.

The HNC said it had drawn up a list of 3,000 Syrian women and children in government prisons who should be released.

SUNDAY MEETING

De Mistura opened the talks on Friday by meeting the Syrian government delegation. He said that while he had not yet received formal notice that the HNC would attend, he expected to meet its delegation on Sunday.

“They’ve raised an important point of their concern, they would like to see a gesture from the government authorities regarding some kind of improvement for the people of Syria during the talks, for instance release of prisoners, or some lifting of sieges,” de Mistura said.

But he added this was a human rights point and “not even an issue to negotiate”, and had strongly suggested the best way to get such measures implemented would be to start negotiating in Geneva, by proxy or directly.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had made a major push to get the HNC delegation to Geneva, and the group said he had contacted it by phone to urge it to attend.

“Secretary Kerry has been in touch with all of his counterparts, including this morning with (Russian Foreign Minister) Sergei Lavrov … and with others, trying to find a way, a formula, in which we can urge the delegation or some version of the delegation to show up here,” a senior U.S. official said.

The Syrian government delegation, headed by United Nations ambassador Bashar al Jaafari, arrived at the talks on Friday afternoon but made no statement.

Another major force, the Kurds who control much of northeast Syria and have proven one of the few groups capable of winning territory from Islamic State, were excluded from the talks after Turkey demanded they be kept away. The Kurds say their absence means the talks are doomed to fail.

GOVERNMENT MOMENTUM

International diplomacy has so far seen only failures in a 5-year-old multi-sided ethno-sectarian civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes while drawing in regional states and global powers.

De Mistura’s two predecessors both quit in apparent frustration after staging failed peace conferences.

Since the last talks collapsed in 2014, Islamic State fighters surged across Syria and Iraq declaring a “caliphate”, the United States and its European and Arab allies launched air strikes against them, and Russia joined in last year with a separate air campaign to support Assad.

Moscow’s intervention in particular has altered the balance of power on the ground, giving strong momentum to government forces and reversing months of rebel gains.

The Syrian military and allied militia are seeking to build on gains in western Syria, and have turned their focus to opposition-held suburbs southwest of Damascus.

The aim is to crush rebels in the district of Daraya to secure the nearby military airport at Mezzeh, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict with sources on the ground.

Rebels had rejected a government deadline for them to withdraw from the suburb of Mouadamiya – home to 45,000 people – by Friday, said Abu Ghiath al-Shami, spokesman for rebel group Alwiyat Seif al-Sham.

More than 500 families had fled, he said. “They are suffering a shortage of food, medicine, milk – there is no power, nothing,” he said, adding that 16 barrel bombs had been dropped on Friday.

A Syrian military source denied the use of barrel bombs, which have been widely documented in the war, and accused the opposition of exaggerating the conditions. “There has been progress by the army in the last days, some successes particularly in the Daraya area,” the source said.

Rebels say the fighting is of more concern to them than the fate of the negotiations. Asked about the future of the talks, Shami told Reuters he was “a bit busy” dealing with the fighting.

(Addional reporting by Lisa Barrington, Ali Abdelaty and Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)