Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Vladimir Yevseyev, Director of the Center for Public Policy Research
Every day people are dying in Syria. Every day there is almost an act of terrorism.
In these circumstances, it is impossible to take any breaks.
It is necessary to seek a peaceful solution to the Syrian problem.
I believe that there is no "problem" of Bashar al-Assad.
The balance of power is not for the opposition, but this is not because the offical authorities have become much stronger, this is simply how the situation turned out.
The main reason here again is that there was a split and a weakening of the external sponsors of the opposition, that's what really happened.
After all, if Qatar and Turkey continued to help as they did help, it would be extremely difficult to achieve any change in the balance of power.
And now what is happening? The opposition is too divided, they have no one to represent them at the talks, nobody.
They did not decide on who will represent Syria, the internal opposition, the external opposition, will there be Kurds, etc.
The second problem that hinders the negotiations is the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I believe that it should be present at the talks, otherwise there is no sense holding a Geneva-2 conference.
The West is against this. And see, how the situation looks. You can wait for a change in the balance of power.
The West hopes that the balance of power will be restored back to the side of the opposition, Russia hopes that the balance of power will remain with Bashar al-Assad.
But you understand, there is blood. Look at what is happening. After all, the radicals are killing hundreds and hundreds of people.
And this is what the West does not notice. That's the problem, the problem of double standards of the West.
You cannot divide the opposition into moderates and radicals.
The opposition is the opposition, and when it starts to fight, it becomes radical. That's the thing.
From this point of view, this division is an absolute fiction.
And to say, for example, that Russia should stop supplying arms to Bashar al-Assad. It is an easy thing to say.
And can you, for example, ban Saudi Arabia from supplying arms to the opposition? You cannot.
But if not, then what questions there can be to Russia? Russia has every legal right to supply weapons.
Iran can supply arms to the legitimate authorities. If you cannot ban all foreign aid, then there is nothing to talk about.
In addition to the West, there are Saudi Arabia, Turkey, there are other states, there is an open Syrian-Turkish border, there is a border that can be opened, the Jordanian-Syrian border.
In these circumstances, what are you talking about? Again, the interference in the internal affairs of Syria is too much.
Here you can talk about the Israeli strikes on Syrian territory, the final strike is hard to explain.
Therefore, from this point of view, of course, the problems in Russian-American relations affect the preparations for the Geneva-2 conference, but they are not the main issue.
There are other reasons why the conference will not take place in the near future.