Iran and Saudi Arabia to support Syria peace negotiations

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has wound up a regional tour with assurances from both Iran and Saudi Arabia that regional tensions will not affect their support for the plan to end the Syrian war or their participation in negotiations, scheduled for January 25th in Geneva.

Mr de Mistura, who met foreign ministers from Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and Riad Hijab, head of the opposition negotiations committee formed in Riyadh last month, characterised his contacts as "useful" and said he was "looking forward to the active participation of relevant parties".

However, the secular Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Council formed last month is demanding an independent seat at the table and rejects inclusion in the Riyadh-appointed team. Its spokesman, Haytham Manna, said “all components of the Syrian opposition have equal rights to participate in . . . negotiations”.

Mr Manna, a longstanding Syrian government opponent, insists that elements of the Riyadh group “are against a political solution and will come just to sabotage the talks”.

He said members of the council, which represents US-supported Kurdish and Arab militias fighting the Islamic State terrorist group in the northeast, are set to meet Mr de Mistura in Geneva this week.

Previous negotiations

The Kurds boycotted a previous round of negotiations, in Geneva in 2014, because they refused to join opposition delegates allied to the coalition sponsored by Saudi Arabia,

Turkey

,

Qatar

and western powers.

Further complicating Mr de Mistura's difficult task, the Saudi-fostered Army of Islam, which has representatives on the negotiations committee, has demanded it be supplied with anti-aircraft missiles and also wants a ceasefire, prisoner releases and an end of sieges of insurgent held areas.

The Syrian government insists on the exclusion from the talks of the Army of Islam and other fundamentalist factions that it regards as “terrorist organisations” that co-operate in the field with al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Under a road map adopted in Vienna last November, Jordan and Mr de Mistura were to make a list of "terrorist" groups to be barred from negotiations. This has, apparently, not been compiled since regional players patronise some such factions.

UN resolution

In December, the UN

Security Council

adopted a resolution reaffirming the Vienna plan involving ceasefires between government and opposition forces (excluding those of al-Qaeda’s

Jabhat al-Nusra

and Islamic State) and talks between the government and the entire range of political opposition groups with the aim of forming a transitional authority that would draft a constitution and oversee elections.

While the Riyadh-backed opposition demands that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad step down before the transition begins, the government argues he must stay through the transition, a stand now agreed by some Western powers, including the US where presidential staffers have predicted he could be in office until March 2017 and beyond.