The United Nations envoy to Syria said yesterday there would be no preconditions for long-delayed peace talks, an assertion likely to anger an opposition movement that says it will only attend if the goal is to remove President Bashar al-Assad.
Lakhdar Brahimi said he hoped the conference – known as Geneva 2 – could still be held in the next few weeks despite obstacles that have held it up for months.
The talks are meant to bring Syria’s warring sides to the negotiating table, but have been repeatedly delayed because of disputes between world powers, divisions among the opposition and the irreconcilable positions of Assad and the rebels.
Brahimi has previously said he thought Assad would not be part of the transitional government that Geneva 2 would attempt to install. But on Friday he said his opinions on the matter had no bearing on parameters for the conference.
“My opinion isn’t important. There is an agreement that attendance at Geneva 2 will not be based on any preconditions from any side,” he told a news conference in Beirut.
Arab and Western officials said this week that international powers were unlikely to meet their goal of holding the conference in November.
Neither side has softened its position despite international pressure to hold talks, seen by some rebels as a betrayal of the aims of the two-and-a-half-year revolt to end four decades of Assad family rule.
The US – which largely supports the opposition - and Assad’s long-time arms supplier Russia have been trying to reach a deal to hold Geneva 2 to halt a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people.
Brahimi spoke in Damascus earlier in the day, after a regional trip of shuttle diplomacy to shore up support for the talks, and said he would travel to Geneva to meet US and Russian representatives.
Asked when the conference might be held, he said: “We hope it will be in the coming weeks, not next year or after that.”
Syria and its main regional backer, Iran, have said there should be no preconditions. Yet Assad’s government also voiced discontent with Brahimi after his visit.
Information Minister Amran Zoabi, in an interview aired on Al Mayadeen TV after Brahimi spoke in Damascus, accused him of using “more than one language ... to please everyone at the expense of the truth”.
He also criticised Brahimi for focusing on humanitarian issues “outside his purview” and for inviting to the peace talks countries that “directly support the hostility against Syria,” such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey.