Few are holding their breath over the forthcoming round of Syrian peace talks in Geneva. Uncertainty about even the exact timing of the talks reflects the formidable barriers to ending the five-year-long war. Just maintaining the current patchy “cessation of hostilities” or getting aid into besieged areas would be significant achievements.



Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy, is heading for consultations in Damascus and Tehran before the talks are supposed to resume next Wednesday, a few days later than first planned. Opposition representatives have promised to be there on time. But President Bashar al-Assad’s officials aren’t planning to turn up until Thursday.

The staggered arrivals don’t really matter as the warring parties have not met face-to-face since the last abortive negotiations in 2014. These UN-brokered “proximity talks” began in late January, were suspended on the brink of collapse after three days and then resumed for 10 days in March. No one walked out. The truce held.



The Syrian government team made clear it would only come back to the Palais des Nations after 13 April, when parliamentary elections are being held. The point is to emphasise the sovereignty of the Assad regime. The president’s future, it insists, is an impassable red line. And since the opposition insists he must step down, the chances of success remain slim.

“The issue of Assad is paramount for everyone, but if you put it on the table at the beginning it’s a non-starter,” said one senior diplomat. And, as a western official admitted: “No one really knows what to do about the binary nature of the argument. So one answer is to carry on talking.”

A rally in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Latakia, Syria. Photograph: Sergei Bobylev/TASS

De Mistura struck an ambitious note on Thursday before heading to the Middle East in the hope of finding a “critical mass” of support. “We have been talking about the general principles,” he said. “But the next round needs to be quite concrete in the direction of a process leading to a real beginning of a political transition.” Bridging the gaps between Iran and Saudi Arabia – Assad’s staunchest backer and fiercest opponent respectively – will test his considerable diplomatic skills.

And Syrian opposition leaders have expressed grave doubts about the readiness of their western backers to press on the crucial issue of the president’s role.



“There is no international will, especially from the US side, and I do not expect anything to come of the negotiations,” is the blunt assessment of Riyad Hijab, coordinator for the rebels’ Higher Negotiation Committee (HNC), which enjoys strong Saudi backing.

The opposition has been alarmed by the growing convergence between Washington and Moscow since last autumn’s direct military intervention by Vladimir Putin. Russia’s dramatic withdrawal of the bulk of its forces last month has been interpreted as a readiness to pressure Assad – though significant results have yet to be seen. “Everything rides on the hope that the Russians will help,” says one adviser.



In the course of recent advances in the Aleppo area, rebel forces did not face Russian airstrikes in support of the Syrian army as they had done previously – possibly a signal from Moscow. But armed groups who met in Istanbul this week fear the HNC will be pressured into making concessions.

“There is a lot of pent-up anger and frustration that the cessation of hostilities deal is rigged against them,” said a well placed Syrian source. “Unless they get something concrete soon they will insist on a time limit for ending it. The next round of talks will be crucial because that’s when it will become clear if there is any traction or not. Hijab can stall but I don’t think he can sell what will be offered.”

Assad said in a recent interview that Geneva could produce a government that includes opposition, independents and loyalists. Buzzwords are “national unity” and “reconciliation”. But he has rejected the idea of a transitional governing body – what de Mistura calls “the mother of all issues” at the heart of the negotiations.

Bashar Jaafari, the head of the Syrian team, was accused of time-wasting and filibustering to avoid substantive talks last month. Responses from Damascus to de Mistura’s questions included the demand that the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967, must be liberated – as if that were in the power of the UN.

The relatively good news is that the cessation of hostilities has lasted nearly six weeks, albeit with significant breaches that the UN insists on calling “instances of non-compliance”. The work of a US-Russian monitoring group is opaque.

The truce excludes Islamic State and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, which are both formally designated as terrorists: that allowed Russian air support for the Syrian government forces who re-captured Palmyra from Isis a week ago.

But Assad has failed to allow aid deliveries to besieged areas such as Daraya, where severe food shortages are forcing some people to eat grass. “It is very dangerous to lose the momentum of humanitarian work,” said the UN aid coordinator Jan Egeland. “If the situation rapidly deteriorates in many areas at the same time it will affect the political process and the cessation of hostilities.”

Britain, the US and other western governments talk about the need to “habituate” both sides to the existence of a permanent UN negotiating forum – while admitting the prospects are poor. The risk, says an opposition source, is that Geneva becomes a process for the sake of process that will be detached from stark realities on the ground – while peace and stability for Syria remain distant hopes.

