Int’l envoy says Syria election won’t contribute to peace talks

PanARMENIAN.Net - If Syria goes ahead with an election that would likely secure a new term for President Bashar al-Assad, the opposition will probably not be interested in pursuing further peace talks with the government, peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Thursday, March 13, according to Reuters.

Assad has not yet announced whether he will stand for a third term, in defiance of protesters, rebel fighters and Western foes who have demanded he go. But in state-controlled parts of Damascus, preparations for his candidacy are unmistakable.

"There is to my knowledge no official declaration yet in Damascus that this election is going to take place, but there are a lot of activities that seem to indicate that there is an election," Brahimi told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council.

"If there is an election, then my suspicion is that the opposition, all the oppositions, will probably not be interested in talking to the government," he said.

A Western diplomat inside Brahimi's closed-door briefing for the Security Council said Brahimi told its 15 member nations that he doubted another 7-year term for Assad would put an end to the suffering of the Syrian people.

Two rounds of peace talks mediated by UN-Arab League peace mediator Brahimi in Geneva failed to bring the government and opposition any closer to agreement on a transitional government as called for in a declaration adopted at an international conference in the Swiss city in June 2012.

The Security Council president this month, Luxembourg's UN Ambassador Sylvie Lucas, told reporters after the meeting that Brahimi's position was that holding an election at the present time would be "incompatible with the Geneva process."

Several senior Western diplomats told reporters that Brahimi said in private meetings this week that a re-election of Assad would signal a lack of seriousness on the government's part.

Syrian ambassador Bashar Ja'afari did not confirm there would be a presidential vote soon, but said holding elections was a "sovereign domestic matter."

Another senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity that Syria's ally Russia was encouraging Assad to postpone the election until after a third round of negotiations in Geneva.