Putin Can Better Improve his Image by Forcing al-Assad to Negotiate

The second round of the Geneva 2 talks on the Syrian civil war ended as they began - with the opposition demanding that negotiations focus on creating a transitional government which does not include President Bashar al-Assad, and the government saying that Mr Assad's role is not negotiable. The government said it was only open to discussing means of combating "terrorism," which it blames on opposition forces and their foreign backers. Mr. Brahimi, the Arab League negotiator, said future talks would focus on ending violence and terrorism, and then move on to discussing the creation of a transitional governing body. British Foreign Secretary William Hague blamed the al-Assad regime for the breakdown of the talks : "With the war in Syria causing more death and destruction every day to the people of Syria, we need to do all we can to make progress towards a proper solution," he said. According to new figures released by the Britain-based Syrian Observ Human Rights on Saturday, 140,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011. The stalemate caused Mr. Brahimi to end direct talks between the Syrian government and opposition Saturday without finding a way of breaking the impasse in the peace talks. Saturday's session lasted only a half an hour and left the future of the negotiating process in doubt, with no date was set for a third session. Brahimi told a news conference that both sides agreed that the agenda for the next round should focus on four points: ending the violence and terrorism, creating a transitional governing body, building national institutions, and reconciliation. Before resuming discussions, the parties must, according to Brahimi, be prepared to discuss on the first day ways to end violence and combat terrorism, the main thrust of the government's stance, and on the second day to talk about how to create a transitional body, as the opposition and Western powers insist. "Unfortunately the government has refused, which raises the suspicion of the opposition that in fact the government doesn't want to discuss the TGB (transitional governing body) at all," Brahimi said. "In that case, it's not good for the process, it's not good for Syria that we come back for another round and fall in the same trap that we have been struggling with this week and most of the first round," he said. "So I think it is better that every side goes back and reflect and take their responsibility: do they want this process to take place or not?" Brahimi said he would consult with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about a way forward. "I am very, very sorry, and I apologize to the Syrian people that their hopes which were very, very high that something will happen here," Brahimi said. The Syrian government's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, said the government accepted Brahimi's proposed agenda but a problem was raised "by the other side when they gave their own interpretation of the agenda." He insisted that the government is committed to returning to negotiations and will go back to Geneva to continue the talks as long as it takes, because "we are extremely careful about stopping the bloodshed in Syria and combatting terrorism," Jaafari told reporters. "This I promise you: We will be committed to doing so." Anas al-Abdeh, a member of the opposition negotiating team, said his side accepted the agenda but the government's refusal to go along with the order of discussions put the prospects of a third session of talks in the Geneva 2 negotiating round in doubt. The first two sessions lasted from Jan. 22-31 and Feb. 10-15. The first round, known as Geneva 1, resulted in a June 2012 roadmap for peace that was not followed. Al-Abdeh labelled the continuing stalemate in negotiations a result of the government's "continuous effort to not talk and not to discuss the issue of the transitional governing body." The unconfirmable death toll has reached 140,000 from three years of violence, with more than 3,400 reportedly killed this month while the peace talks were being held in Geneva. The UN's human rights office said in January it has stopped updating the death toll from Syria's civil war, confirming that it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July. ~~~~~ Dear readers, if we consider the comments coming out of the Geneva 2 talks, it is clear that the discussions are still focused on setting the agenda items. There have been no substantive negotiations, with the exception of the evacuation of starving rebel families from Homs, and the motives behind the al-Assad regime's agreeing to this are still far from clear. What we know is that the evacuees, under the protection of the Red Cross, have been questioned by al-Assad representatives. And, vis-à-vis yesterday's blog -- we all know that Vladimir Putin is on the wrong side in Iran, Ukraine abd Syria, to name several of many, and that these political realities are not to be forgotten by his use of the Sochi Games to improve his public image, something that has been going on since the 1936 Munich Games -- but one might point out to Mr. Putin that he could have gained immeasurably greater worldwide stature by going to Damascus to demand that al-Assad stop his butchering and get on with serious negotiations to give Syria back to its people...for Syria belongs to them - not to the al-Assad regime.