Your Task: Implementation Only...

Your Task: Implementation Only...

The debate over the upcoming round of the Geneva negotiations over the Syrian crisis is becoming serious once again, in the context of the ongoing preparations for the resumption of these negotiations on the 28th of this month, as the international envoy announced.


The joint presidential statement of Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States was a clear message to all the parties concerned. The message is that a political solution in accordance with Security Council resolution 2254 has become a reality, contrary to the wishes of the war forces, whether inside Syria, or within the regional powers, or Western centers. Therefore, these forces no longer have a reaction to the situation other than to resort to partial, secondary battles, and drowning in details, wishing to hinder the process again. In this context came the attempts to make tension in Lebanon, with its disastrous repercussions on the Syrian arena, including the ppostponement of the political solution indefinitely. In the same context came the diplomatic battle, in the Security Council, over the Syrian chemical file, although its results were already known. In the same context, attempts are being made to form one delegation of the Syrian opposition in a way that keeps the hegemony of the Riyadh platform.
    
The urgent procedural task on the agenda today, under the unprecedented international consensus on a political solution, is to form one delegation of the Syrian opposition. In this regard, everyone must realize that their function and role in this regard is no more than the implementation of the international resolution.

If the Security Council has authorized a state to be a negotiating ground for gathering the Syrian opposition, this does not mean that this state has been given the right to control the formation of the opposition delegation, which requires standing equidistant from all opposition forces. Logic requires the formation of a balanced delegation away from attempts to prefer one part, and diminish the rights of others. The formation of the opposition delegation also requires not to ignore the following basic fact: the Syrian opposition forces are pluralistic in nature, and different in their programs, visions and policies. The formation of a balanced delegation is necessary, precisely because the extremists in the Riyadh platform still live in the delusions of the past, wishful of the possibility of circumventing the international resolution, its spirit and its principles of consensus, which implicitly means the renewal of the possibility of obstruction, and planting mines within the negotiating process, in order to be exploded later on.

The process of negotiations in Syria should not be an opportunity for consolidating the influence of this or that country, nor should it be abused to settle accounts among the regional countries – the friends of Yesterday, the enemies of today. The basic thing about this process, in relation to the role of all international and regional powers, is to facilitate the Syrian-Syrian dialogue, and to provide the climate necessary to bring this process to its logical conclusion: the fight against terrorism, ending the humanitarian disaster, and radical national and comprehensive change. Any other actions are obstructions, whatever the cloak they might be disguised in.

Kassioun Editorial, Issue No 837, Nov. 19, 2017