Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks with both sides to end Syria’s civil war, but opposition leaders were sceptical yesterday of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power.
Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces renewed calls to arm the rebels, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month.
An East-West disagreement that has seen some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War has deadlocked UN efforts to settle the Syrian conflict for two years, so any rapprochement could bring an international common front closer than it has been for many months.
Israeli air strikes, reports of the use of chemical weapons and the increasing prominence of al-Qaeda-linked militants among the rebels have all added to international urgency for an end to a war that has killed more than 70,000 people.
Alarmed at the prospect of the conflict spilling across a volatile region central to global energy supplies and transit routes, the major powers have, as Kerry told Putin on Tuesday, “very significant common interests” in pushing for a settlement.
“The alternative,” Kerry later told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “is that Syria heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos.” Both sides fear a failed state in Syria could provide a base for hostile militants willing to strike around the world.
But with Syria’s factional and sectarian hatreds more entrenched than ever, it is far from clear the warring parties are ready to negotiate with each other. Most opposition figures have ruled out talks unless Assad and his inner circle are excluded from any future transitional government.
“No official position has been decided but I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head,” said Samir Nashar, a member of the opposition’s umbrella National Coalition body.
“Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad’s role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made.”
In the past, the US has backed opposition demands that Assad be excluded from any future government, while Russia has said that it must be for Syrians to decide, a formula the opposition believes could be used to keep Assad in power.
Opposition members said they were concerned by comments from Kerry in Moscow, echoing Russia, that the decision on who takes part in a transitional government should be left to Syrians.
“Syrians are worried that the United States is advancing its own interests with Russia using the blood and suffering of the Syrian people,” said National Coalition member Ahmed Ramadan.