Invitations to a planned January 25 peace meeting on Syria have yet to be issued due to disagreements between major powers on which opposition groups should be invited, a United Nations spokesman said Monday, hinting at a possible delay in talks. News, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging all countries from the opposition to redouble their efforts and provide the list of representatives who should be invited at the peace talks that will start in less than a week.
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But Elbio Roselli, Uruguay’s ambassador to the UN, told journalists after UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura briefed Security Council members Monday, that the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia would not derail the talks to resolve Syria’s crisis. Including Jaish al-Islam whose leader, Zahran Alloush, was killed in an air strike believed to have been carried out by Russia last December 25 and a coalition of Islamist groups, Jaish al-Fatah, that has the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda in its ranks, which the Russians and Syrians have been bombing in Idlib province for months now.
The diplomat countries include Russia, rivaling countries Saudi Arabia and Iran, Russia and Middle Eastern and other European nations.
The backing of the U.N.’s most powerful body, divided for years over Syria, came amid growing recognition by world powers that the top priority in Syria should be the defeat of the Islamic State group, which has exploited the country’s years of chaos and created a base from which it promotes deadly attacks overseas. De Mistura was tasked with pulling together a final negotiating team for the Syrian opposition.
Last month, the Security Council issued a rare, unanimous show of support for negotiations to be held between the Assad government and opposition groups.
Moscow wants the moderate Opposition that is closer to President Bashar al-Assad to take part.
Hopes for a quick end to the Syria conflict are dim, however, with Assad’s forces scoring a series of battlefield gains which could make the government less inclined to negotiate a compromise.
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Speaking on the Syria talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rolled optimism and prudence into one. Two other highly experienced negotiators, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, who has worked in high-level worldwide relations for decades, both resigned as the envoy after they concluded their efforts failed to bear fruit.
