US, Russia fail to agree on a date for Syria peace talks

The United States and Russia failed today to agree a date for a Syrian peace conference, remaining divided over what role Iran might play in talks to end the civil war and over who would represent Syria’s opposition.

"We were hoping that we would be in a position to announce a date today; unfortunately we are not," said UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who chaired the meeting at the United Nations in Geneva.

“But we are still striving to see if we can have the conference before the end of the year.”

Mr Brahimi conferred with senior US and Russian officials before widening the talks to include representatives from Britain, France and China, as well as Syria’s neighbours Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and the Arab League. Mr Brahimi said he would bring Russian and US officials together again on November 25th and hoped that opponents of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad would have agreed on delegates to represent them some days before that.

“The opposition has a very, very difficult time,” he said. “They are divided. It is no secret for anybody. They are facing all types of problems and they are not ready.”

Russian deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov, who met Mr Brahimi along with fellow deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, said the United States, which has backed the revolt against Assad, did not have the leverage needed to assemble a credible opposition delegation representing various factions.

“It is not just the representation of the opposition that is required, but the participation of an opposition delegation of a broad range of opposition forces. And this is what the Americans are failing to achieve,” RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

Washington was represented at the talks with Mr Brahimi by State Department Under Secretary Wendy Sherman and Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria.

The proposed peace conference is meant to build on a June 2012 agreement among world powers in Geneva that called for a transitional authority with full executive powers, but did not explicitly say Assad should step down.

Damascus reiterated yesterday that Assad would stay in power come what may, casting doubt on the political transition that is the main focus of the proposed “Geneva 2” conference.

“Syria - the state, the nation and the people - will remain and ... Assad will be president of this country all the time they are dreaming that he isn’t,” the Syrian state news agency quoted Information Minister Omran Zoabi saying late yesterday.

International efforts to end the conflict in Syria, which has killed well over 100,000 people, driven millions from their homes and further destabilised the region, have floundered.

"One thing is certain - there is no military solution for the conflict in Syria," US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Warsaw today, asserting again that Assad must go.

“I don’t know how anybody believes the opposition is going to give mutual consent to Assad to continue,” he said.

Russia said Iran, Assad’s main sponsor, must be invited to any peace talks, after the main Syrian political opposition leader said his coalition would not attend if Tehran took part.

Agencies