No Quick Fix For Syria
Syrian peace talks are heading in the direction of another failed process or have already been 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 won’t be a new round of peace talks for at least another two to three weeks. The escalation in fighting and difficulties delivering humanitarian aid have ruined the hopes of 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 concrete results on the ground. These all 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 the 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 the 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 will now be exposed anytime to the full fury of the war which will be turned out to be very ugly this time. Even now the foreign backers of warring parties in Syria which 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 beginning retaliated back, with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov criticizing 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 a renewed peace talks are 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 opposition maintains its stand that President Assad has no role to play in future of Syria and even in the transitional government. On the other hand government’s delegation refused even to discuss the possibility that President Bashar al-Assad would step down and a transitional governing body would be formed. Even the global and regional powers are also 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 no strong leader to replace him, Syria will 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 into account, it is very hard to believe that any peace talks will improve the situations 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 ethnosectarian divisions and current battle lines while devolving significant power to local communities. While some level of international military presence like- United Nation’s Monitoring Force will likely be necessary to monitor and ensure maintenance of the ceasefire. For the success of any new round of talks a solid groundwork has to be done first otherwise, it’s bound to fail again. As we draw on the lessons of the mistakes in the peacebuilding processes in Iraq, Yemen, and Libya, where half-baked measures, the lack of stabilisation plans and flawed security arrangements came back to explode in the face of those to hurried in launching the peace process. After a stable ceasefire is achieved then a fresh round of negotiations should be launched in that more workable solutions for the resolution of the Syrian war can be discussed in detail like 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 all up to Syrian to decide what political system they want for their country. But the international community has to facilitate the Syrian people to reach a peaceful solution to this civil war and then to reconstruct their country.
Author is a columnist for Middle-East and Af-Pak region and Editor of geo-political news agency ViewsAround (VA) can be reached at manishraiva@gmail.com
