By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
U.N. mediator and special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, stated clearly that the talks have not yet achieved their goals. The process will take more time. The worst part is that after three weeks, they are not yet able to agree on the most essential and critical things. But that might be changing with greater US and Russian intervention.
The US Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, and Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gennady Gatilov, met today in an attempt to do that.
As far as the larger diplomatic dilemma goes there are two central demands or attempts to frame the war: a humanitarian catastrophe or a terrorist epidemic. Both are in fact true but each side adjusts the truth to their information advantage. Framing the war is important, but it need not be an either or category.
Moscow and Washington differ on a peace plan proposal that allows critical aid access to displaced Syrian persons and refugees. Like their backers, the Russians, the Syrians are still strongly using the word terrorism exclusively to their enemies. There negotiations lead from targeting and eliminating terrorist violence from Syria.
The gist of the Russian-Syrian strategic basis is all well and good, but state terror from Syrian President Bashar alAssad must stop too and be included in a discussion of terrorism. In fact, just today, a human rights organization reported the Regime’s use of improvised barrel bombs (described as literal barrels of TNT) that are dropped from a helicopter. Activists claimed that the government forces killed some 400 civilians and around 109 children among them, in Aleppo.
A rare cease-fire in Homs set a new precedent in diplomacy, led to the evacuation of nearly 1,400 who received humanitarian aid since last Friday. But that temporary truce expired yesterday.
The Syrian Opposition and the West have in the past persistently demanded that President Assad step down as part of the peace plan. Additionally, they recognize the terrorism crisis; especially coming from foreign actors, as well as the human toll.
The common ground is humanitarian. The solution is to allow critical aid in the form of food, water, sanitation, medicine, clothing, temporary and permanent shelters and other supplies to the affected civilian population.
A recently proposed 24-point peace plan by the Opposition omits the removal of President Bashar al Assad- a truly needed and core demand from the beginning. In exchange, human rights must be guaranteed in transition process that vets government abusers without purges. This is a significant change in Opposition diplomatic efforts.
A UN Security Council draft resolution calls for pauses of hostilities in order to address humanitarian needs in given locations and penalties of arms and military supply sanctions if violated. Russia has been asked by the USA to stop stalling this process or redirecting the issue to terrorism. The Russian Federation calls it “detached from reality.”
As far as a further political solution, partitioning the state of Syria or creating a decentralized transitional government or reform government might be possible in the future. It would be better to address the humanitarian first and terrorism second, but simultaneous action might be the only way forward to appease both parties.
Accommodating humanitarian aid while addressing and condemning “all” acts of terror, state or otherwise, will likely be the necessary ingredient.
The rise of violence during the talks (the highest in three years) was reported by the Syrian Observatory for human Rights and has not been independently confirmed. Still, it is taken as the potential show of force from a perspective of a battered pro-government establishment still standing and a great defiance by many anti-Assad forces and loose rebels that are against the Geneva II conference and not affiliated with the formal Syrian Opposition representatives.
Talks will proceed Friday and hopefully continue with some immediate gains or resolution in the interim, now that the power players are helping the two sides put more on the table.