Bombings committed to wreck Syria peace talks, United Nations envoy says

The talks resumed for the third day on Saturday.

“A genuine political commitment to peace will be needed if 2017 is to offer any different prospect than the death and destruction of the past six years”, he added, emphasizing the need for fighting to stop.

The geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically since de Mistura last brought the warring sides together for talks in Geneva in April 2016. Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister in charge of Middle East issues, told a meeting of European Union ambassadors in Moscow last week that the reconstruction of Syria would top the agenda very soon. Bayan Sharbaji told AFP after meeting the United Nations envoy.

Mr de Mistura met on Sunday with two opposition groups that curry favour with Russian Federation, president Bashar Al Assad’s main backer. Gen Hassan Daeboul, who was killed in Saturday’s attack, had been implicated in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut in 2005. “It is not the future of Syria”.

The spokesman also stressed that they expect “active policies from the US administration”, criticizing Obama administration for its “passive attitude” during the previous Geneva talks.

“I’m not expecting an immediate breakthrough from this negotiation, but the beginning of a series of rounds that will be able to go much more in depth into the substantive issues”, he said.

During three previous rounds of talks in Geneva a year ago, the rivals never sat down at the same table, instead leaving de Mistura to shuttle between them.

With Astana handling the ceasefire, Geneva is left with the political conundrum and a United Nations mandate to discuss a new constitution, United Nations -supervised elections and transparent and accountable governance.

In spite of Mr de Mistura’s efforts, the small Cairo and Moscow opposition groupings have resisted joining the large Saudi-sponsored delegation. However, he embraced the opportunity to see if there is a political road forward. Trenches and earth berms have made other streets impassable, and almost every building showed some signs of artillery shelling or heavy machine-gun fire.

“We ask for direct negotiations…”

The UN envoy said Friday that he would ideally like to get them to talk directly, but acknowledged that there were difficulties in achieving that. They also come after Syria’s Russia- and Iran-backed troops regained control of the key northern city of Aleppo in December.

The negotiations were suspended as the war escalated, and a senior Western diplomat said he did not anticipate much progress.

De Mistura’s plan did not explicitly call for a political transition.