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“We hope that the Russian efforts could be helpful,” Mr. Kerry said on
Wednesday (the "Russian efforts" aim to keep Assad in power and appoint
a "respectable" member of the opposition as prime minister) ... “It is
time for President Assad, the Assad regime, to put their people first
and to think about the consequences of their actions, which are
attracting more and more terrorists to Syria, basically because of their
efforts to remove Assad,” Mr. Kerry said." Yeh - the good president
needs to think about his actions, not because they are evil, but because
they attract "terrorists" who want to (shock, horror) overthrow him!
MK
Kerry Supports Syrian Peace Talks in Russia
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ANNE BARNARDJAN. 14, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/world/middleeast/kerry-backs-syrian-peace-talks-in-russia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld&_r=1
Secretary of State John Kerry, left, spoke with Staffan de Mistura, the
United Nations special envoy for Syria, at a meeting in Geneva on
Wednesday. Credit Pool photo by Rick Wilking
GENEVA — Secretary of State John Kerry voiced support for Russia’s
attempt to convene peace talks in Moscow between representatives of the
Syrian government and the opposition, even though some leading
opposition figures have said they do not plan to attend.
“We hope that the Russian efforts could be helpful,” Mr. Kerry said on
Wednesday at the start of a meeting here with Staffan de Mistura, the
United Nations envoy for the crisis in Syria.
Mr. Kerry also praised Mr. de Mistura’s attempt to broker local
cease-fires in Syria, starting with the contested city of Aleppo, saying
he hoped it could “have effect.”
Mr. Kerry’s support for the Russian and United Nations initiatives comes
as the American-led push to negotiate a solution to the bloody Syria
conflict, the so-called Geneva process, has faltered. The United States
has not withdrawn its public insistence that no enduring political
settlement is possible as long as President Bashar al-Assad is in power.
Nevertheless, Mr. de Mistura’s step-by-step strategy to de-escalate the
civil war is attracting growing interest among some Obama administration
officials.
Mr. Kerry said before the failed peace talks in Geneva last year that
the United States’ goal was a transitional government in Syria that did
not include Mr. Assad. But he refrained from making such an explicit
demand on Wednesday, urging instead that Syria’s leaders rethink their
course.
“It is time for President Assad, the Assad regime, to put their people
first and to think about the consequences of their actions, which are
attracting more and more terrorists to Syria, basically because of their
efforts to remove Assad,” Mr. Kerry said.
Russia, which has backed the Syrian government politically and by
sending arms, is planning to convene talks among the warring Syrian
factions on Jan. 26 in Moscow.
There has been speculation that Mr. de Mistura’s efforts and the Russian
initiative could be combined to start a new peace process, or at least
to diminish some of the fighting in a conflict that has already killed
more than 200,000 people and displaced nearly half the population.
Several leading figures among the more moderate of Mr. Assad’s foes have
suggested that they do not believe Russia can be an impartial arbiter,
and have refused to join the talks in Moscow.
“We don’t have the conditions for the success of this meeting,” Moaz
al-Khatib, a cleric from Damascus who left Syria after the uprising
began and, unlike many others who have spent decades in exile, has some
influence among the rebel fighters inside Syria, said recently.
Leaders of the exile opposition coalition that the United States has
recognized as the legitimate representative of Syria have also said they
will not go.
An American official said the United States had told the Syrian
opposition that it had little to lose by attending the Moscow meeting.
But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
internal deliberations, said that the United States was not coordinating
with Russia and was not pressing Syrian opposition officials to attend.
Emile Hokayem, a Middle East-based analyst who has called for more
military support for the opposition, said that Mr. Kerry’s remarks
suggested a weakness in the United States’ policy: With little to show
for its own efforts, he said, it is ceding the initiative to Russia, a
putative rival in the conflict.
“The U.S. has no irons in the fire,” Mr. Hokayem said. “It basically
wants to maintain the illusion of involvement, while maintaining the
reality of disentanglement and distance from this whole nightmare.”
Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said Wednesday that Syrian
opposition leaders would lose influence if they skipped the Moscow
meeting.
“Those who decide not to take part in this event, they will lose in
terms of their positions in the peace talks process as a whole,” Mr.
Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.
Mr. de Mistura, who is planning to travel to Damascus next week, said
Wednesday in Geneva that he appreciated Mr. Kerry’s support. He said he
wanted to find a way to stop the fighting in Aleppo that could become a
model for cease-fires elsewhere and eventually lead to a political
solution.
“I will continue, I can tell you, pushing for Aleppo, because Aleppo has
become an iconic example of where things could start sending the best
signal,” Mr. de Mistura said. “In other words, that bombing, shelling,
barrel bombing, mortar shelling would stop, and bring some humanitarian
aid, which means giving some hope to the Syrian people.”
“You know very well — we have been hearing it from Iran — the Syrian
people are just saying, ‘Enough,’ ” he added.
After his meeting with Mr. de Mistura, Mr. Kerry met with the foreign
minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at a luxury hotel here. Mr.
Kerry’s objective was to encourage progress in the next round of
negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, which are scheduled to resume in
Geneva on Thursday.
“I think it’s important,” Mr. Zarif told reporters before Mr. Kerry
arrived for their meeting. “I think it will show the readiness of the
two parties to move forward, to speed up the process.”
The talks on limiting Iran’s nuclear program have been extended twice; a
deadline for showing progress is nearing. Iran and six world powers,
including the United States, agreed last year that an accord outlining
the main parts of an agreement would be finished by March 1, and the
full agreement by July.
Michael R. Gordon reported from Geneva and Anne Barnard from Beirut,
Lebanon.
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