International
Syrian government and opposition negotiators met face-to-face for the first time during a second round of Geneva talks but the two sides made little progress, U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who mediated the talks, said on Tuesday.
After a tumultuous first stab at peace talks, which wrapped up late last month, negotiations resumed this week in Geneva to end Syria's nearly three-year war, which has killed over 130,000 people and displaced millions more.
"The beginning of this week is as laborious as it was in the first week. We are not making much progress," he told a news conference in Geneva after a joint meeting between the two sides.
The Syrian Red Crescent, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that it was preparing to re-enter the Old City area of Homs, a day after it had announced 1,200 people had been evacuated from rebel-held areas that have been under siege and cut off from aid for nearly two years.
After attacks on aid convoys into the city delayed the operation, the United Nations said the delivery process would be extended to Wednesday night.
The humanitarian exit operation is part of a deal brokered by the United Nations between the regime and the Syrian opposition after months of negotiations, and considered the only success achieved at the previous round of talks in Geneva.
But a cease-fire underpinning the effort proved fragile, with the first aid convoy coming under attack Saturday and mortar shells hitting a rebel-held district Sunday, killing five people.
Ahead of this week’s talks, the opposition submitted to Brahimi a "political vision" document for the future of Syria, and urged him to speed up the process of the talks, Al Jazeera’s James Bays reported from Geneva.
The opposition delegation has also accused the government delegation of stalling while Syrian forces make gains on the battlefield, strengthening the government’s bargaining power.
Brahimi heard the call for rapid progress in Geneva but said there was little else he could do if neither side was willing to rescind ground.
In response to Bays’ question about whether Brahimi would consider imposing an agenda on the two intransigent sides, Brahimi said that wasn’t his role as mediator.
“I'm not sure I can impose an agenda on people who don't want (one),” he said. “I can’t put a gun (to) their head. This is their country. They come here with the support of the entire world."
The opposition wants the Syrian government to acknowledge and honor a previously agreed-upon 2012 communique calling for a transitional government, and says it will not accept any peace deal that involves President Bashar al-Assad retaining power.
The government has provisionally accepted the idea of a transitional government, but vehemently rejects the notion that Assad might cede power.
In comments on Tuesday, the U.S., which backs the opposition coalition, echoed the call for progress in Geneva, but emphasized the importance of successfully implementing the Homs aid deal, a rare diplomatic achievement.
“What happened in Homs over the past few days is unacceptable,” State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: Homs is only a small part of a catastrophic situation. The real issue here is the regime’s broad and deliberate denial of humanitarian access to innocent civilians in besieged communities around the country, which has continued.”
Meanwhile diplomats at the U.N. in New York were discussing a draft resolution about humanitarian aid to Homs. The draft, however, has been derided by Russia, the Syrian government's main ally, as "absolutely one-sided.” Moscow, Assad's main backer, helped broker the Homs aid delivery, but has said the time is not right for a broad-stroke U.N. resolution.
"The ideas that were shared with us by those initiating this process ... are absolutely unacceptable and contain an ultimatum for the government, that if they don't solve all this in two weeks then we automatically introduce sanctions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.
In a joint press conference with French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, President Barack Obama denounced Russia for obstructing a wider aid delivery pact.
"Secretary Kerry and others have delivered a very direct message to the Russians that they cannot say they are concerned about the well-being of the Syrian people when there are starving civilians," Obama said.
Brahimi said he would meet with senior Russian and U.S. officials in Geneva on Friday, before heading to New York in the coming weeks to report to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Al Jazeera with wire services
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