JEDDAH, ANKARA: The UN Special Envoy for Syria signed off from his
posting on Thursday ruing “a missed opportunity” to help end the
country’s conflict at talks in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.
Staffan de Mistura, who announced his resignation last month, capped his
term as peace envoy with two days of talks in the Kazakh capital
sponsored by power-brokers Russia and Iran — allies of the Syrian regime
of Bashar Assad — and opposition-backer Turkey.
A statement from his office noted that he regretted “no tangible
progress in overcoming the 10-month stalemate on the composition of the
constitutional committee” was made at the talks.
Yahya Al-Aridi, spokesman for the Syrian opposition, blamed Russia and
Iran for the talks’ failure. Russia had an upper hand and it could drag
the regime in any direction, he told Arab News.
He said that Tehran did not want the Assad regime to get into any political process “because it lives off tension.”
He added: “The UN agreed in Sochi to have a supervisory role in the
committee, but Russia and its allies are withdrawing from that
commitment now. The UN said that if the committee goes the Russian way,
it wouldn’t have the UN blessings. We believe the UN would stick to that
stand.”
Al-Aridi said De Mistura was too lenient with the Syrian regime, Russia
and Iran. “De Mistura should’ve called a spade a spade from the very
beginning as his predecessors did. He thought that with certain
compromises and nice talk, he could get the brutal regime to agree to
his proposals. I hope, in his briefings next month, De Mistura would dot
the i’s and cross the t’s and tell the world who is blocking
international efforts for peace.”
He said: “If the world continues tolerating tyrants like Assad, the world is going to have more of his kind.”
The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany held talks on Syria on
Nov. 27 in Istanbul and agreed that the constitutional committee should
be established by the end of 2018.
“So it still needs time. This summit was not expected to have the last
word on the establishment of this much-waited committee,” Oytun Orhan, a
Syria expert at Ankara-based think-tank ORSAM, told Arab News.
Under the UN plan, the regime would choose 50 of the committee members,
while Turkey would propose 50 members from the Syrian opposition, and
the UN is expected to nominate the remaining 50 members, composed of
technical experts and civil society representatives.
According to Orhan, the key country to overcome the obstacles toward
setting up the 150-member constitutional committee is Russia, as Moscow
is still negotiating with the Syrian Assad regime, which is rejecting
the UN list.
“Turkey puts its emphasis on the eradication of extremist movements in
Syria. The ball is now on Russia’s side to increase its pressure on the
Assad regime for convincing it on the committee’s composition,” he said.
The constitutional committee is considered a key element in reaching a
political settlement in the country. But while the opposition asks for a
new constitution to be drafted, the Assad regime prefers discussing
amendments to the current one.
Experts, however, are optimistic about the recent steps that have been taken for building trust.
“The recent swap of prisoners between the Syrian government and rebels
is an important step toward supporting the political settlement
process,” Orhan said.
Ankara has re-emphasized the importance it attaches to the
constitutional committee in Syria. In a meeting on Nov. 27, Turkey’s
National Security Council called on parties to establish a
constitutional committee under UN observation as soon as possible to
reach a permanent solution.
Orhan said that Iran was putting its efforts into breaking the consensus
over the Sochi deal that was reached between Russia and Turkey in
September for a peaceful resolution on the issue of Syria’s Idlib
province.
“But loosing Turkey as a partner in Syria would be very costly for Russia,” he said.
According to Orhan, if Russia and the Assad government ever conduct a
joint operation to rebel-held Idlib based on the alleged chemical attack
by Idlib-based insurgents to attack the government-held city of Aleppo
last Saturday, Ankara would react strongly and consider it as a
declaration of war.
“So far, Ankara has opted for a policy of appeasing the opposition
forces that it supports in Syria. But, in such a case, it would support
them for resisting against such an offensive,” he said.
Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the
University of Lyon 2, thinks that sooner or later the constitutional
committee will be formed.
“Damascus shows resistance, but finally it will acquiesce to the
decision of Moscow. In fact, the majority of the members in the
committee will be of a pro-regime tendency,” he told Arab News.
However, although the slow progress in finalizing the constitutional
committee left a mark over the success of the Astana summit, Balanche
thinks that nothing concrete will come out of this committee apart from a
law on local decentralization, which was planned a long time ago to
give more power to the municipalities.
“In any case, there will be no new constitution for Syria until 2021,
which is the date of the re-election of Bashar Assad,” he said.
The next phase of Syria negotiations in Astana are scheduled for early February, according to the joint communiqué.
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