No breakthrough in U.S., Russia talks on Syria, envoy says

PanARMENIAN.Net - International Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said after talks with Russian and U.S. diplomats on Friday, January 11 that a political solution to the Syrian conflict is unlikely to emerge in the near future, RIA Novosti reported.

No practical deals were announced after the five-hour meeting of the UN-Arab League envoy with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva.

“If you are asking me whether a solution is around the corner, I am not sure that is the case,” Brahimi said in a video released by the UN News Centre after the talks.

“What I am certain of is … that it is the wider international community, especially members of the Security Council, that can really create the opening that is necessary to start effectively solving the problem,” he went on. “In our view, there is no military solution for this conflict.”

With the conflict approaching its two-year mark, and the UN recently saying that total deaths may have surpassed 60,000, all international efforts to end the fighting have failed thus far, with Russia and China blocking several Western-backed UN Security Council resolutions.

“I am absolutely certain that the Russians are as preoccupied as I am, as preoccupied as the Americans are, by the bad situation that exists in Syria and its continuing deterioration, and I am absolutely certain that they would like to contribute to its solution,” Brahimi said.

He added that Bogdanov and Burns agreed on the necessity to reach a political solution based on the so-called Geneva communiqué of June 30, 2012, proposing, among other things, a transitional Syrian government that would comprise both the Syrian authorities and opposition forces.