UN hosts fresh Syria talks in Vienna
A parallel conference, backed by Iran and Turkey, is to be held in Sochi next week.
The UN embarked on fresh efforts on Thursday to jump-start Syrian peace talks that Western countries and the opposition fear are being undermined by a separate Russian diplomatic push.
The two days of talks in Vienna come after eight previous rounds in Geneva, during which the two sides failed to even meet each other.
The previous attempts stumbled in particular over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the government delegation refusing to meet the opposition face-to-face until they drop demands that he leaves office.
The Syrian government’s top negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari made no comment as he arrived at the UN in Vienna to meet the world body’s special envoy Staffan de Mistura. The main opposition group, the Syrian Negotiations Commission (SNC), said it would sit down for separate talks with the envoy. Nasr al-Hariri from the SNC said the discussions would be “a real test for all the sides”.
The Vienna talks come ahead of a separate peace conference next Tuesday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, backed by Russia, Iran and Turkey. The three key regional players have been sponsoring parallel peace talks since the start of last year, which have fuelled concerns that the Kremlin is looking to sideline the UN.
For a new Constitution
The focus in Sochi will be on hammering out a new Constitution, according to the opposition, something that Mr. de Mistura also wants discussed in Vienna.
A Western diplomatic source said that if Moscow wanted its own peace talks in Sochi to be successful, it must push its ally Assad into accepting the need for a political transition, as agreed by the UN Security Council in 2015. (Source: The Hindu).
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