{"id":20189,"date":"2017-01-23T12:02:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T12:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=20189"},"modified":"2017-01-23T12:02:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T12:02:39","slug":"expectations-low-as-syrias-warring-sides-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/expectations-low-as-syrias-warring-sides-meet.html","title":{"rendered":"Expectations low as Syria’s warring sides meet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Expectations low as Syria’s warring sides meet<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Expectations low as Syria’s warring sides meet:-<\/strong> Syria’s warring sides met for talks in Kazakhstan’s capital on Monday, flanked by intermediary nations seeking to engineer steps towards a goal other negotiations have failed to reach: an end to the six-year-old conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran, the meeting marks the first time the opposition and representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have come together since United Nations-brokered talks in Geneva were suspended early last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

As fighting continued in Syria and organizers played down chances of a breakthrough, the two sides sat opposite each other at a round table in a hotel conference room in Astana before a day of talks got under way.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rebel delegation did not plan to negotiate face to face with government representatives but via intermediaries, a rebel source said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexander Musienko, an adviser to Russia’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, cast the talks as a step in a long process. “Undoubtedly one cannot resolve issues like this in just one day,” he told reporters on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were no senior government figures among the delegations and Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry said it expected the meetings to be over by midday on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pro-Assad Russia and Turkey, which has supported anti-Assad rebels, remain at odds over fundamental issues such as whether Syria’s president should stay in power or, as the rebels are demanding, step down.<\/span><\/p>\n

The head of the Syrian government delegation, Bashar al-Jaafari, said his group’s aim was to bolster a shaky ceasefire as a precursor to a broad-based political solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking to Reuters, Yahya al Aridi, a spokesman for the opposition delegation, also said political talks were not on the Astana agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n

Underlying the mutual mistrust the talks will need to overcome, Jaafari played down Turkey’s role as a party to the talks, saying they were between Syrians only.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Turkey is violating Syrian sovereignty so there is no Syrian-Turkish dialogue,” he said, a reference to Turkish support for anti-Assad armed groups in the north of Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

That message was reinforced on Syrian state TV which assured audiences that the Syrian delegation had met no Turkish officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some observers said the meetings in Astana, which UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura is attending, could help jump-start the U.N.-led negotiations.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Astana process is a little bit of an unknown quantity,” said a senior U.N. Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But provided that it helps get a genuine U.N.-led process up and running again … then it can play a constructive role.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The talks pointedly exclude the West, though Kazakhstan, with the backing of Moscow and Ankara, extended an invitation to the new U.S. administration last week, which Washington declined.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iranian officials have said they strongly oppose U.S. involvement, though Russian state television said George Krol, the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, would be present as an observer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Turkey and Russia – each for their own reasons – both want to disentangle themselves from the fighting. That has pushed them into an ad hoc alliance that some people believe represents the best chance for progress towards a peace deal, especially with Washington distracted by domestic issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opposition arrive in Astana aware that the fall of their former urban stronghold, Aleppo, has shifted the momentum in the fighting in favor of Assad.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Sunday, war planes bombed rebel-held areas of western Syria, killing 12 people in one location, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, while insurgent shelling of Aleppo killed six.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The ceasefire is clinically dead, but the Russians and Turks want to keep it alive to send a message to the international community that they are the ones in charge of the Syrian situation,” said Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-mideast-crisis-syria-talks-idUSKBN1570HX<\/span><\/div>\n

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