MESOP TODAYS UPDATE GENEVA TALKS : Political Talks Renewed in Geneva – De Mistura’s Statement

24 Febr 2017 – MESOP  – Political talks to end Syria’s six-year conflict resumed on Thursday, with the regime and opposition-rebel bloc facing each other in Geneva. The two sides listened to UN envoy Staffan de Mistura’s statement:    I ask you to work together. I know it’s not going to be easy to end this horrible conflict and lay the foundation for a country at peace with itself, sovereign and unified….

The Syrian people desperately all want an end to this conflict and you all know it. You are the first ones to tell us it. They are waiting for a relief from their own suffering and dream of a new road out of this nightmare to a new and normal future in dignity.Mistura will hold meetings with the delegations on Friday to establish a procedure for indirect discussions.

Russia and Turkey brokered a renewal of talks in late January in the Kazakhstan capital. Expectations are still low: the Assad regime is demanding an end to the process for a transitional governing authority — the centerpiece of international proposals since 2012 — in which the President might have to leave power. The opposition-rebel bloc is again calling for a substantive ceasefire, release of detainees amid the killing of thousands in regime prisons since 2011, and an end to sieges — but with little belief that the regime will consider any of those demands.

However, the opposition-rebel group has bent to Russian pressure to include some politicians preferred by Moscow, and De Mistura maintained on Thursday that the nominal ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey offered a possibility: “The effort has jump-started the process…to see if there is a political road forward and we don’t want to miss this opportunity.”However, neither side applauded De Mistura’s statement. As he embraced opposition-regime representatives, the regime delegation walked out of the room.

Tension also immediately arose over a transitional process. The lead negotiator for the opposition, Nasr al-Hariri, said, “If Staffan is serious he has to stick to the first subject in the agenda which is a political transition that is acceptable to the Syrian people.”But Russia’s envoy in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin, said demands from for Assad to step down are “absurd”.

The opposition’s Hariri also declared, “Iran is the main obstacle to any kind of political deal,” blamed Tehran for ongoing pro-Assad attacks violating the nominal ceasefire.On Thursday, pro-Assad warplanes carried out attacks from Aleppo and Hama Provinces in the northwest to the Damascus suburbs and Daraa Province in the south. Hezbollah and the Syrian military have been trying to take more territory southwest of Aleppo city, reoccupied by the pro-Assad forces in December, while fighting has been ongoing in Daraa city since last week when rebels attacked to pre-empt an expected pro-Assad offensive. www.mesop.de