Multilateral talks on
Special Envoy Kofi Annan's Syrian mediation plan should seek to secure a
ceasefire but not determine in advance the shape of a possible national unity
government, Russia said today.
“The meeting in Geneva
was intended to support Kofi Annan's plan and it must set the conditions for
the end of violence and the start of an all-Syrian national dialogue, and not
predetermine the contents of this dialogue,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
told a briefing.
Lavrov is expected to
discuss Annan’s proposal with the other four permanent UN Security Council
members and key regional players in Geneva on Saturday.
Speaking
in Moscow, Lavrov said the Annan plan was not, however, a final document and he
expressed dismay that it had been leaked to the media ahead of the Geneva
talks.
Earlier in the day, Bloomberg quoted three UN diplomats as saying
Russia has endorsed Annan’s detailed roadmap for a political
transition in Syria, a sign that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost the
support of a key ally.
Persuading Assad to
step aside and forming a transitional government to pave the way for elections
will be at the core of the Geneva meeting, the officials said. All three asked
not to be identified by Bloomberg because the talks are private.
Annan earlier this week
gave the parties to the talks a few days to respond to a set of recommendations
entitled “On Guidelines and Principles of
a Syrian-led transition.” By late on June 26, the Russians had accepted the
paper in full, including language that spells out Assad’s departure, according
to the three officials, who all were informed of the decision.
The Annan document,
which was reviewed by Bloomberg News, says a transitional government may
include members of Assad’s government and opposition and other groups, although
not “those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility
of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation.”
Speaking in Helsinki on
Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she had been in regular
contact with Annan over his transition plan.
She did not make public
details of his proposal, but noted: “I’ve been in close consultation with
special envoy Kofi Annan about the prospects for a meeting that would focus on
a roadmap for political transition in Syria.”
Annan “has developed
his own very concrete roadmap for political transition, he has been circulating
it for comments and when I spoke to him yesterday I conveyed our support for the
plan that he has put forward,” said Clinton.
“We think it embodies
the principles needed for any political transition in Syria that could lead to
a peaceful, democratic and representative outcome reflecting the will of the
Syrian people,” she added.
Yemen or Kosovo
Editorially, Lebanese political analyst Abdelwahhab Badrakhan,
writing for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat,
says Annan’s roadmap for political transition in Syria leaves Damascus choosing
between “the Yemen scenario and the Kosovo option.”
The Yemen scenario would nudge Assad out of office as
happened to Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Kosovo option would see the Syrian regime
forcibly evicted by joint internal and international military action. Where the
regime is concerned, it’s a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
To explain the current state of play, Badrakhan starts
with a metaphor, writing:
After lip-reading the televised remarks of US
President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and
observing their body language at the recent G20 summit, a Damascus denizen
figured:
The American asks the Russian: How much for your
share in the partnership (with the Syrian regime)?
The Russian: A million dollars.
The American: Too much.
The Russian: I’ve been building the partnership for
50 years. I invested a lot in it.
The American: I’ll give you $100,000 for your share
and keep you as company chairman.
The Russian: Too little… I might not want to sell after
all.
The American: Reconsider and better take the offer.
In two months you could be pushed out and left with nothing.
In essence, Badrakhan continues, the elements of
caricature in this hypothetical dialogue also sums up the regime’s current
circumstances. “The regime was urged to end its crackdown, to lead the
political reform and to stop the killings. The Arab League intervened to help
it cease the violence and open a dialogue with the opposition. When none of
this worked, a joint UN-Arab intercession followed. But the regime kept piling
its failures and moving from stupidity to arrogance, from murders to massacres,
and from shabiha to scorched earth and ethnic cleansing policies – all the time
thinking it would get away with its war crimes.
“Having dissipated all chances of an internal
political solution, a peaceful transition and a safe way out, the regime left
the international community no alternative but to oversee its exit.”
Badrakhan believes the regime is unfit and can’t be
trusted to play a role in Syria’s future.
“Endorsement of Annan’s roadmap for political
transition in Syria at Saturday’s Geneva meeting would mark the start of an
international entente on a political solution for Syria on terms the regime
invariably sought to evade and sidestep.
“Even Russia and Iran realize the regime must pay the
price for getting a solution going. Whereas the regime could have sacrificed a
few heads at the onset of the crisis, it is now bound to part with its own.”
Despite its apprehensions, the opposition too would
have to accommodate the international entente and accept the roadmap once
adopted. That would be the only way to put all the pieces of the jigsaw
together since “the regime is unable to prevail despite its arsenal and the
uprising is incapable of bringing down the regime although it crippled it.”
In any case, says Badrakhan, all this is
hypothetical. “The proposed roadmap could bear fruit quickly, or it could drag
on due to regime intransigence or Russian-Chinese-Iranian considerations and
ambitions. But the solution’s cornerstone is to see the last of the head of the
regime and its bunch of murderers.
“The roadmap’s flaw is that it would seek to build an
alternative regime from disparate components. Its forte is a burgeoning
American-Russian understanding. What is certain is that its success or failure would
determine the nature of international intervention needed in either case: the
Yemen template if it succeeded or the Kosovo scenario if it failed.”
