Russia, U.S. to Discuss Syria Next Week
Top Russian and U.S. officials will meet in The Hague next week to discuss preparations for a long-delayed international peace conference on Syria, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Monday.
"This meeting will take place in the middle of next week in The Hague," Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the Interfax news agency.
The meeting will also involve Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy on the crisis, an unnamed Russian diplomatic source separately told news agency ITAR-TASS.
Neither Gatilov nor the diplomatic source disclosed which Russian and U.S. officials would be meeting, nor the exact date of the talks.
Moscow and Washington agreed in May to conduct the so-called Geneva 2 talks, which aim to bring together President Bashar Assad's allies and the opposition for the first time after two-and-a-half years of conflict.
Gatilov said last week that the Geneva 2 meeting itself would probably not happen until October at the earliest because of a busy diplomatic schedule in September that includes U.N. meetings in New York.
The negotiations are based on the results of a Syria peace conference held in Geneva in June 2012, when world powers agreed on the need to establish a transition government in the war-torn country.
But the different sides then failed to agree on whether Assad could play a role in forming the new government, and if his closest representatives could serve on the new interim team.
That failure and the conference's inability to halt the fighting on the ground meant that the peace terms were never enforced.
19 August 2013, 18:24
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What Russia really values is the loyalty of Assad to any whim the motherland aspires to realize. For example, they denied some pipelines going through the country from some Qatari oil group, which, although profitable to Syria, would threaten Russia's monopoly of gas and oil in the region and such. Russia's just after its own, like everybody else, but isn't easily persuaded due to Bashar's astute loyalty to Russia. Russia's also planning to tightening its grip on the South/North-West/West Caucasus for oil and gas monopoly which is quite important. Bashar's the only guarantee for Russia's effortless perseverance in the Middle East. If a more pragmatic deal is offered to the Russian's they will accept.
19 August 2013, 18:30
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*Russians
On the other hand, Russia has had some trouble with Islamic terrorism at home and in close proximity to its borders and any change in government in Syria would absolutely have to crush any and every terrorist within its borders, and I don't see Al-Qaida and other terrorist elements simply packing their bags and heading back home to their respective corners of the world after the country collapses.
I've also seen Jarba wearing the thawb/agal/golden keffiyeh -- the works, and conclude that it's not a secular government he intends to form, which will lead to a polarization of the population and also make it harder for Islamic terrorist to be eradicated from the country. My 2cents of sorts there.
