Geneva II negotiations: Gravediggers will stay busy in Syria as peace talks end in failure

[Jefferson23]

As talks in Geneva draw to a close, Patrick Cockburn, writing from Damascus, argues that peace is a distant hope

The first session of the Geneva II peace negotiations, which ended yesterday, were more of a failure than they look. It was the sort of international conference of which the sponsors say that useful spadework was done and sceptics respond that the only spades in evidence were those of the grave diggers: some 1,870 Syrians were killed during the week of the peace talks.

For negotiations to have any hope of success they must reflect the balance of power on the ground in Syria. It is all very well for US Secretary of State John Kerry to state that the meeting would be entirely about political transition in Syria during which President Bashar al-Assad should leave power. But why should Mr Assad do anything of the sort when his forces hold 13 out 14 Syrian provincial capitals and are slowly retaking districts in Damascus, Homs and Aleppo captured by rebels in 2012?

If Mr Kerry is sincere in believing that peace can only come if Mr Assad goes, then he is in practice assuming a radical change in the present balance of forces in Syria which could only happen through a long war or full-scale foreign military intervention. The approach of the US and its European allies so far dooms Syrians to devastation and a repeat performance of the Lebanese civil war which lasted fifteen years between 1975 and 1990.

It is not that Mr Assad’s forces are likely to win a decisive victory. They may be inching their way forward but the rebels still hold great swathes of territory in the north and east of the country. The Syrian Army is short of troops, which must explain why it is blockading rather than recapturing small opposition enclaves in Damascus, Homs and Aleppo. Overall, there is a military stalemate that is unlikely to be broken.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/geneva-ii-negotiations-gravediggers-stay-busy-in-syria-as-peace-talks-end-in-failure-9100210.html