Russia, US and UN can be “overall satisfied” with Syria talks
Syrian government and opposition delegations have left ten days of peace talks with few results and a follow-up meeting uncertain, but analysts and negotiators say the discussions are an important beginning. VoR’s Brendan Cole spoke to Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute.
The immediate post-mortem on the talks from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem was blunt.
“I regret to tell you that we have not reached tangible results during this week,” he said after the talks ended in Geneva on Friday.
Despite persistent pressure from UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and co-sponsors Russia and the United States, the two delegations failed to agree on a single point.
No ceasefire was signed, talks on a transitional government never began, and a mooted deal to allow aid into the besieged Old City of Homs went nowhere.
However, Shashank Joshi said: “I don’t think anyone expected a firm agreement to be reached at this early phase of talks. I think the United Nations will be glad the two sides were round the table together. They made eye contact. They didn’t speak to each other, they channelled their comments via Lakhdar Brahimi, the mediator between the sides.
“But what they didn’t do is storm out before they’d even met, which was entirely possible when we had that stormy opening day of the conference. So, all in all, the conveners of this conference, the UN, the US and Russia, will be overall satisfied and treat this in line with expectations, as long as the two sides agree for a further date of meetings.”
(VoR)