By Vestnik Kavkaza
On January 26-29th talks between representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition should take place in Moscow. The last talks were held in February 2014, when the second round of the Geneva peacemaking processes ended.
Vitaly Naumkin, the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, thinks that “Geneva-2 hasn’t led to anything. The only way out of the Syrian situation is national consent. This is a constant position of our country, and that’s why Russia is initiating the inter-Syrian meeting in Moscow. The meeting will be exclusively inter-Syrian. These are not international talks; that’s how the meeting differs from the Geneva process. The Moscow platform and the meeting aren’t substituting for Geneva. Geneva is an international event with the participation of global powers, regional countries which influence the Syrian crisis. This meeting is different; and if it encourages Geneva-3, we all will thank God for this.”
According to Naumkin, “the meeting should unite all Syrian patriots; and nobody doubts that there are patriots in all sides, including conflicting groups. Syrian patriots think about the future of their country, about trying to use any opportunity to stop bloodshed, the attack by terrorists, and to conduct a dialogue on further steps. The Moscow platform gives such an opportunity to talk fairly and openly.”
At the same time, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, says that “we want to help to prepare a new round of talks, considering the mistakes of previous Geneva talks. I think there are two mistakes. Firstly, only one part of the opposition was invited – the National Coalition, which has a head office in Istanbul. All other groups, not only internal Syrian ones, but also those who operate in other parts of the world, were ignored. Secondly, the meeting in Montreux where the Geneva process started had wide-scale PR: more than 50 ministers, an open discussion in the presence of the press. It led to one thing only – polarization of positions and contradictory rhetoric. We need a calm talk between the direct participants in the process – the government and various opposition groups – without PR.
The opposition should be representational. That’s why we are following one of the key provisions of the Geneva Communiqué of June 30th 2012, which reads that the national dialogue in Syria should cover the whole spectrum of Syrian society. Our task is that the opposition activists who don’t talk to each other stay in one room. There will be no official representatives of Russia. Our scientist,s who have known these opposition activists for many years, will simply help them in the organization, giving them a floor, but the talk will be provided by the Syrians themselves. We hope that, as a result of the talk (as no document is planned to be adopted), the participants will realize that they want to live in a sovereign, territorially-integral Syria, where all ethnic and religious groups are protected equally and where different rules operate in addition. It should be a very simple statement. No complicated forms should be created. Moreover, this will be an informal contact with the government. Probably, if there is some progress, it could help the official envoy of the UN on Syria, de Mistura, to start the organization of a more formal process, which shouldn’t be aimed at publicity.”
Lavrov believes that “eliminating terrorism, preventing Syria from turning into a terrorist state and fulfilling the plans to establish a caliphate in the region are much more important tasks than a change of the regime and establishment of an administrative body, hoping that Bashar Assad would resign. By the way, in June 2013 at the G8 summit at Lough Erne it was declared that its leaders urged the Syrian government and the opposition to unite efforts in the struggle against terrorism. There was no Islamic State at the time. The call from the G8 didn’t require the resignation of someone and the appointment of someone else. There were no preconditions. Understanding the fact that a slogan should turn into practice gives me hope.”
Meanwhile, Lavrov said that the anti-terrorist struggle should be based on international law: “Bombing the territories of an independent state, including bombing for reasons of destroying terrorist groups, is illegal without the agreement of the state or a direct sanction by the UN Security Council. Moreover, only the UNSC has the right to recognize this or that group as a terrorist group if we want, the recognition is obligatory for all countries. It concerns the need to respect the independence of Syria and Lebanon, whether we speak about fighting with Jabhat al Nusra or ISIS by the U.S. coalition on the territory of Iraq, due to an agreement by the Iraqi government, or on the territory of Syria without such an agreement. We are sure such things should be discussed. Speaking about Syria and the anti-terrorist struggle, the Syrian government is a natural ally in the struggle.”
