The Three Tracks = 2254

What is new is that the recognition of this triad has taken on a new form with the above-mentioned meeting; the talk is no longer within the limits of “parallel paths whose existence is bound to their ability to prove their supportive function of Geneva as the basic course”, as was implicitly understandable from the declarations of both De Mistura and the Europeans, but now it became a matter of parallel and complementary tracks that all of them have to be activated, and in the words of De Mistura: “The Sochi format must become more significant for global community in the cause of settling Syria's crisis”, and “Astana should be an ongoing, more regular process”, and “we need to revitalize all three: Make Astana more consistent in de-escalation, make Sochi with its promise to become a reality and Geneva to use it”, as he added.

This comes in conjunction with the United States setting out a new impeding condition to participate in the Geneva negotiations, which was expressed by US State Department Spokeswoman, who said that Damascus “has to declare its entire stockpile in all of its [chemical] programs… If they would do this we can help get them to the Geneva process,”

In their continuing desperate attempts to find out an interpretation of what is going on in a way that fits with their whims and obliquities, those harmed by the political solution – the extremists in both parties – are in agreement in their mourning for the allegedly “dead” Geneva process, and its underlying UNSC resolution 2254. One side is pushing for Sochi's solutions (in a specific and limited interpretation), and the other side is pushing for substituting UNSC Res. 2254 with another resolution. Nonetheless, the stubborn facts lead to the following basic conclusions:

First, UNSC Resolution 2254, which was originally made in Russia and China, and later agreed on by the Western powers - though with the latter’s reluctance and intentions not to abide by it - this resolution was, and still is, the main straight path of the solution which all other tracks pass in its vicinity.

Second, the track of Astana and Sochi – which were created to overcome the Western obstruction of the Geneva process and to push this process forward, though they were not initially seriously recognized, and even underwent clear, and sometimes overt, attempts to thwart them – have succeeded and become recognized as parts of the overall implementation of the UNSC Resolution 2254, side by side with the Geneva process.

Third, and the most important, the new obstructionist condition laid down by Washington to the Geneva talks, which once again reveals US actual hostility to the political solution in Syria, is a blatant attempt to blow up the Geneva process itself, an attempt which has been quickly encircled by a clear equation: UNSC Resolution 2254, through the three tracks altogether, will be implemented, whether the West is involved in this process or not!

Kassioun Editorial, Issue No 859, Apr. 23, 2018