A second round of Syria peace talks got off to a shaky start yesterday with the international mediator meeting the two sides separately after violations of a local ceasefire and an Islamist offensive set back his efforts.
Ahead of the talks, mediator Lakhdar Brahimi told delegates to commit first to discussing both ending the fighting and setting up a transitional government. The government side said combating “terrorism” – its catchall term for the revolt – should be agreed first.
The government says it will not discuss his leaving power
The second round was intended to follow quickly after no substantive progress was made last month at the first round of talks in nearly three years of civil war.
Brahimi tried to break down mutual distrust by agreeing a truce for a single city, Homs, but even that was only achieved after the first round was over, and aid workers were fired upon as they evacuated civilians on Saturday.
A letter from Brahimi given to delegates at the weekend said the new talks aimed to tackle the issues of stopping violence, setting up a transitional governing body, and plans for national institutions and reconciliation. The Opposition says a transitional governing body must exclude President Bashar al-Assad. The government says it will not discuss his leaving power.
The Opposition said it had handed Brahimi its view of what a transitional government should look like and submitted witness statements it said showed the Syrian army had fired at the Homs aid convoy. The government blames the rebels.
The Opposition also said there had been an escalation in the government’s use of “barrel bombs” - oil drums or cylinders packed with explosives and metal fragments and usually dropped from helicopters. It said more than 1,800 Syrians had been killed by them last week, half in rebel held parts of Aleppo.
“It is not acceptable that the regime will send its own delegation to peace talks while it is killing our people in Syria. This must stop,” Opposition spokesman Louay al-Safi told reporters after the delegation met Brahimi.
The mediator plans to keep meeting the two sides separately in Geneva over the next few days in hopes of improving the atmosphere at the talks, which are expected to last a week.
The Syrian government delegation urged him to condemn an Islamist offensive on Sunday, which it said killed at least 41 people in the town of Maan in central Syria, which is populated mainly by Assad’s Alawite sect, a source said.
“Ending violence and combating terrorism and requiring the countries supporting (terrorism) to stop... is the first issue that should be agreed upon to pave the way for the launch of the political process,” the government delegation stated in a document seen by Reuters, which a source said it was given to Brahimi yesterday.