GENEVA: International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has given Syria’s warring sides until December 27 to name their delegations to planned peace negotiations next month, officials said yesterday.
About 30 ministers from big powers, regional countries and others are due to gather in the resort of Montreux on Jan. 22 to give their blessing to the negotiations between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and rebels fighting to oust him.
Then Brahimi will broker the first face-to-face Syrian talks in Geneva from January 23. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to confirm the Montreux ministerial venue shortly — Geneva hotels will be full at the time due to an annual luxury watch fair.
The stated goal is to agree a transitional government with full powers to end a 1,000-day-old conflict that has killed well over 100,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes.
Brahimi has set a deadline for Damascus and the opposition to name their teams to the “Geneva 2 conference”, which follows one held by his predecessor Kofi Annan in June 2012. Those talks did not formally involve the Syrian government and its foes.
The envoy’s spokeswoman, Khawla Mattar, said Brahimi wanted the delegations named by December 27. “That is the deadline by which Mr Brahimi should receive the names of the Syrian delegations and who is leading them,” she said.
This is unlikely to present a problem to Assad’s government, but his opponents are deeply divided and in disarray.
“The biggest challenge is the opposition delegation. There is still no agreement,” an Arab diplomat said.
Iran and Saudi Arabia, which back opposite sides in Syria’s war, are among more than 30 countries slated to attend the peace conference next month, diplomats said.
The so-called Geneva 2 conference, a follow-up to a 2012 meeting, will actually be held at the lakeside Swiss city of Montreux because of a shortage of hotel rooms in Geneva, which will be hosting a luxury watch fair, a Western diplomat said.
“At the moment there are 32 countries invited, but that number may increase because everyone wants to come,” an Arab diplomat said.
Most countries will be represented by their top diplomats and “each minister can speak for five minutes,” the Arab diplomat said. Afterwards, many of the foreign ministers will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, which runs from January 22 to 25.
General Salim Idriss, head of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, said on November 26 that his group would shun the peace conference and pursue its fight to topple Assad regardless.
The Syrian National Coalition opposition group, which also has Western support but minimal influence over fighters on the ground, has said it is ready to attend, but demands that Assad play no role in the proposed transitional government.
“With every day that passes the opposition is getting more fractured,” said a Western diplomat. “We have to make sure they turn up and they are united. That is the biggest challenge.”
Experts from the United Nations and Western allies are helping prepare opposition representatives for tough negotiations. “The Swiss are doing it, the Americans too. They are training them in negotiating skills,” said one source.
The Western diplomat said: “They need a lot of work, they have to be ready to come to the table, be ready to speak, have a communications strategy and understand the negotiating process.”
REUTERS
