Tension in Geneva over composition of delegations and idea to form federal Syria with semi-autonomous Kurdish region

The three-day-old Syrian peace talks have hit their first logjams, as disputes erupted over the composition of delegations to the talks and a Kurdish call to form a federal Syria with a semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country. The UN officials expected teething troubles, and are largely reliant on Russia and the US to pressure negotiators to remain constructive.

The idea of a federal Syria was rejected outright on Tuesday by Bashar al-Jaafari, the leader of the Syrian government delegation, who also said he would not talk directly to the main Syrian opposition delegation because it included people he considered terrorist murderers.

He said a future federal Syria, proposed on Wednesday by Kurdish groups leading the fight against Islamic State, was doomed to fail. Kurds had been part of Syria for centuries, he said.

Speaking after his second round of talks with UN officials, Jaafari also rejected suggestions he was under any pressure from Russia to compromise in the talks as a result of the surprise partial withdrawal of troops announced by Vladimir Putin at the start of the Geneva talks on Monday.

With the phased withdrawal continuing on Wednesday, he said all such decisions about Russian troop movements, including partial withdrawals, were agreed jointly with the Russian government.

“The Russian decision to withdraw partially from Syria was taken jointly by a common decision, taken both by President Putin and President Assad. So it wasn’t a surprise for us,” Jaafari said. Yet at the Pentagon, officials said the announced withdrawal had taken them by surprise and they were still struggling to assess Russian intentions.

Jaafari also dismissed the Syrian opposition negotiating team as a “terrorist Saudi delegation headed by a murderer”.

He also welcomed the arrival of the Moscow Group, a rival opposition group tolerated by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and seen as government stooges by the main Syrian opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC).

The talks designed to end the five-year civil war and initially widely expected to fail have been given momentum by the Russian troop withdrawal, the relative success of the ceasefire and the signs of diplomatic cooperation between the US and Russia.

America appears to have accepted Russia’s role in Syria, and hopes in return Putin will put serious pressure on the Syrian government to compromise, including over Assad’s role in a new Syria.

Russia’s military position in Syria remains largely unchanged from before the withdrawal announcement. Only “a small handful” of aircraft, perhaps eight to 10, have left Syria, said Colonel Steve Warren, the chief spokesman for the US war against Isis, despite Russian indications that Su-34 fighters and Ilyushin-76 cargo planes were departing imminently.

Russian aircraft continue to fly missions over Syria, but have not conducted any strikes since Monday’s announcement.

“We haven’t seen a significant reduction, frankly, in their combat power. Particularly their ground combat power remains static, their air combat power slightly reduced, but that’s it,” Warren told reporters on Wednesday.

While the ceasefire has led to a “fairly notable reduction” in Russian attacks on Assad’s opposition, Warren said the largely unchanged Russian military picture meant loyalist forces could continue to press their assault with Russian air support should talks break down.

“It’s difficult to know what the Russian intentions are. We were not expecting this announcement in the first place,” Warren said.

Warren added that the Kurds had given the US no indication that they would pivot away from harassing Isis forces and towards defending any federalised territory they might come to acquire in Syria.

Both the US and Russia appear to have accepted that neither the government nor the US-backed opposition can win militarily, and it is necessary to reach a deal in part to refocus efforts on driving out Isis and al-Qaida’s Syrian franchise, the al-Nusra Front.

But the talks, being overseen by the UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura, are still bedevilled by conflicts over the composition of the delegations, the release of political detainees and humanitarian aid, even before the various sides negotiate substantive issues of a transitional governing body, future constitution and elections in 18 months’ time to a new parliament and presidency.

The question of whether Assad would be entitled to stand in those elections remains the single most important issue, including whether he would ever be answerable to an international criminal court for war crimes.

In a sign of the thicket ahead, the powerful Syrian Kurdish political party says its faction is planning to declare a federal region in northern Syria.

Nawaf Khalil of the Democratic Union party said his party was not lobbying for an only-Kurdish region but wanted to see the “model of federalism applied to all of Syria”.

Khalil says the area envisioned for northern Syria would include representation for Turkmen, Arabs and Kurds. The idea is not just anathema to the Syrian government, but also Turkey, which has been waging war against the concept of an independent Kurdistan for almost 30 years.

The call for a federal Syria is expected to be made at the end of a Kurdish conference being held on Wednesday in the town of Rmeilan in northern Syria.

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The Kurds in northern Syria are not formally represented at the Geneva talks although the UN has said it wants to expand the groups attending as the process continues. The HNC claims it already adequately represents the Kurds, but critics say it does not represent those fighting in the north.

The US and Russia have also been working to persuade Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to welcome the Russian withdrawal, and not to use any vacuum as a moment to step up arms supplies to their client groups. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, welcomed the Russian move as a very positive step, adding he hoped it would compel Assad to make concessions.

In a sign the UN recognises it needs to make concessions to Russia in return for the drawdown of its airforce, UN officials said they would welcome the Moscow Group to the talks. The group includes Syria’s former deputy premier Qadri Jamil, who was sacked by Assad in 2013 and is now viewed by Damascus as a moderate opponent.

The group member Fateh Jamous charged the more hardline HNC with imposing “conditions that we consider contradictory to the principle of consensus, including the condition of [Assad’s] departure”.

He said his camp would meet De Mistura later on Wednesday to submit its ideas for a transitional government, “which cannot happen without consensus from all sides”.

Jafaari appeared to welcome the arrival of the new opposition faction. “No one can monopolise the opposition,” he said after meeting De Mistura, in a reference to the HNC.

He branded the HNC lead negotiator Mohammed Alloush a terrorist and said he would not meet him directly until Alloush had apologised for insisting that the transition must start with Assad’s fall or death. The HNC, opposed to the expansion of the number of delegations, has been insisting it is not seeking the execution of Assad, but for him to be tried in court. It has also been frustrated by the lack of progress on the release of political detainees.

But just as the HNC will be angered by the prescence of the Moscow Group, the Syrian government delegation will be upset at any suggestion of a federal Syria with autonomy for Kurds. Jafaari refused to comment “on unilateral statements coming from here and there”, but said Syrian Kurds were an important component of a united Syria.