Russia, U.S. fail to agree on Syria conference date

PanARMENIAN.Net - After a rocky day of UN-brokered talks, the United States and Russia failed to agree on a date to bring Syria's warring sides back to the negotiating table, and the two powers remained divided Tuesday, Nov 5, over what role Iran should play in a hoped-for Geneva peace conference.

The UN-Arab League's top envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, told reporters at the end of the talks involving the U.S., Russia and other nations that the impasse did not mean all hopes of resuming negotiations from June 2012 were dashed. Another round of U.S.-Russian talks on arranging a second peace conference in this city is planned for Nov 25.

"We are still striving to see if we can have the conference before the end of the year," he said.

Brahimi said one of the biggest hurdles is various divisions among the Syrian opposition. "It is no secret to anyone that the opposition has a lot of problems and is working seriously to overcome these problems to reach a position and to appoint a convincing delegation to represent them in Geneva, and that is what has delayed us a bit," he said.

The diplomatic talks among world powers in Geneva at the UN's elegant Palais des Nations contrasted sharply with the heavy shelling and missile attacks being waged in a civil war that both sides still believe they might win on the battlefield.

Diplomats ran into repeated roadblocks Tuesday. World powers strongly disagreed over what diplomatic steps to take to resolve the fighting and what any future Syrian leadership beyond President Bashar Assad's government should look like.

Syria's information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, said the Assad government is not ready to negotiate handing over power. Syrian opposition leaders have insisted that Assad be excluded from Syria's future leadership for any talks to take place.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov again insisted that Iran be part of any talks on ending the Syrian conflict. But Iran's proposed presence at a Geneva conference would be an irksome factor for Syrian rebels and their Gulf Arab backers.

Normally chilly relations between Washington and Tehran have slightly thawed in recent months due to increased Iranian cooperation in talks on its nuclear program. But a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to go on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity, according to the AP, said Washington remains opposed to Iran's participation in a Geneva conference on Syria.

That's mainly due to Iran's lack of backing for the principles agreed upon at the first Geneva peace conference on Syria in June 2012, which the official said all nations that participate in Syria discussions should support. The official added that the U.S. has "some great concerns about Iran's participation in the (Syrian) conflict and Iran's financing of Lebanese Hezbollah."

The circle expanded for a second meeting with three permanent members of the UN's 15-nation Security Council — Britain, France, China. By late afternoon, it expanded again to include Syrian neighbors Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, which are struggling to cope with massive influxes of Syrian refugees, and the Red Cross and UN humanitarian agencies.

The roadmap for a Syrian political transition adopted in June 2012 in Geneva starts with establishing a transitional governing body with full executive powers agreed to by both sides and ends with elections. But there has been no general agreement on how to implement it, and perhaps the biggest sticking point remains Assad's future role.