Daily Times

Syrian peace talks are heading in direction of another failed process, or have already failed depending on how grim a view we take of the events unfolding in Geneva. The Syrian opposition has called a ‘pause’ to negotiations, which we can conclude as an equivalent to a walkout from the talks. Even UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura says there wouldn’t be a new round of peace talks for at least another two to three weeks. Escalation in fighting and difficulties delivering humanitarian aid have ruined the hopes for an earlier start of the peace process. Moreover, opposition’s chief peace negotiator, Mohammad Alloush, has resigned over the failure of peace talks to deliver any concreate results on ground. These signs clearly indicate that recent peace talks in Geneva turned out to be a futile exercise, since from the beginning of these peace talks there was a lack of good signs or goodwill gestures.

The first casualty of the Geneva peace talks was the cessation of hostilities or truce, which was brokered by the United States and Russia to pave the way for the first peace talks attended by the warring parties. The opposition has already declared that the Syrian truce is over, which means full resumption of fighting.

The cessation of hostilities agreement was never implemented completely. There were numerous cases of sporadic fighting from the start, which gradually intensified. But it surely helped in the delivery of much needed humanitarian aid to needy Syrians and brought a relief from intense fighting to large numbers of civilians trapped between government forces and rebels. But Syrians would now be exposed anytime to the full fury of the war, which could turn out to be very ugly this time. Even foreign backers of warring parties in Syria that were promoting talks once are now taking sides. The High Negotiations Committee, Syria’s main opposition umbrella group had said it was not willing to return to any talks without a full ceasefire and access for humanitarian aid. Russia — which has shown solidarity with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the beginning of the conflict — retaliated back, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticising opposition for setting preconditions to their participation. Even some analysts are suggesting that just as the US provided cover for Israel, Russia is protecting Assad. Even if a renewed peace talk is launched there is no hope of its success because there are major bottlenecks between the Syrian government and opposition.

One of the major bottlenecks is that while the opposition maintains its stand that President Assad has no role to play in Syria’s future, and even in transitional government, on the other hand, government’s delegation refused to even discuss the possibility that President Assad would step down and a transitional governing body would be formed. Even global and regional powers are divided about this core issue. Moscow and Tehran, main backers of Assad, believe that any agreement between the opposition and Syrian government should support the central government of Damascus, even if this means supporting President Assad. They argue that if President Assad leaves power while there is no strong leader to replace him Syria would turn into a failed state just like Libya. The United States and its allies oppose Assad’s stay in power, arguing that should the government of Syria continue to be led by President Assad, it would be next to impossible to assume that armed groups put their weapons down and negotiate and cooperate with Syrian central government.

After taking all these equations in account it is very hard to believe that any peace talks would improve the situation on the ground and bring peace. In these current circumstances the best hope for halting Syria’s destruction is the acceptance of agreed zones that take into account ethno-sectarian divisions and current battlelines while devolving significant power to local communities. While some level of international military presence like the United Nation’s Monitoring Force would likely be necessary to monitor and ensure maintenance of the ceasefire, for success of any new round of talks solid groundwork has to be done first, otherwise it’s all bound to fail again. As we draw on the lessons of mistakes in peace-building processes in Iraq, Yemen and Libya, where half-baked measures, lack of stabilisation plans and flawed security arrangements came back to explode in the face of those who show unnecessary hurry in launching the peace process. After a stable ceasefire is achieved, a fresh round of negotiations should be launched so that more workable solutions for resolution of the Syrian war can be discussed in detail — creating a federal structure with greater autonomy to every region, a decentralised system of governance or even the division of Syria on sectarian lines. It is up to Syrians to decide what political system they want for their country. But international community has to facilitate the Syrian people to reach a peaceful solution to this civil war, and then to reconstruct their country.

The writer is a columnist for the Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and Editor of ViewAround, a geopolitical news agency. He can be reached at manishraiva@gmail.com