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SYRIA’S DIVIDED OPPOSITION finally agreed today to join an international peace conference, a day after Damascus offered concessions including a ceasefire plan for the battered city of Aleppo.
The exiled umbrella group the National Coalition voted at a meeting in Istanbul in favour of attending next week’s talks in the face of intense pressure from the West and Arab states.
The so-called Geneva II conference opening on Wednesday is aimed at setting up a transitional government to find a way out of the brutal conflict that has killed 130,000 people and made millions homeless since March 2011.
Damascus had already said it would attending, although the US Secretary of State John Kerry has accused the regime of diversionary tactics, saying “nobody is going to be fooled”.
The Coalition — a grouping of myriad organisations — had been locked in procedural disputes which delayed the decision by a day.
But in a secret ballot, it agreed by 58 votes to 14 with two abstentions and one blank vote to take part, according to an official tally.
Infighting
The opposition has long struggled to put forward a united front during the civil war, rocked by infighting over its leadership and efforts to form a government in exile.
And many members had been appalled at the idea of sitting down at the same table with representatives of the hated regime they have been trying to unseat for almost three years.
In a surprise move in Moscow yesterday, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem presented his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov with a security plan aimed at halting “all military actions” in the devastated northern city of Aleppo.
Muallem also said the regime was willing to swap prisoners with the rebels in the first such mass exchange since the conflict erupted, while Lavrov said Damascus was ready to take “a series of humanitarian steps” to improve the delivery of aid.
And today, food aid entered the besieged Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus — where dozens of people are reported to have died of hunger and lack of medical care — for the first time in four months.
Syria, Muallem said, would “make every effort to ensure Geneva II is a success and meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and the direct orders of President Bashar al-Assad”.
But Kerry warned the regime it could not divert the peace talks away from the aim of installing a new government, after a letter from Muallem to the UN said Geneva was about getting rid of extremists in Syria.
‘Important opportunity will be missed’
“They can bluster, they can protest, they can put out distortions, the bottom line is we are going to Geneva to implement Geneva I, and if Assad doesn’t do that he will invite greater response,” he said.
Kerry also sought to allay opposition fears that the negotiations would somehow legitimise Assad’s regime and leave him in power, saying: “It’s not going to happen.”
Media reports have suggested that the United States and Britain are threatening to withdraw support from the opposition if it fails to send a delegation.
But factions within the Coalition — set up in its current form in November 2012 — have been wary of being drawn into a process they fear could result in Assad clinging to power.
“The goal of any political solution must be to install a government of transition that Assad will play no part in,” said Coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh.
The Coalition is beset by rivalries between groups backed by either Qatar or Saudi Arabia, while on the ground, more mainstream Islamist factions are battling Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists.
“If the Syrian opposition refuses to take part in Geneva II, an important opportunity will be missed,” a Turkish diplomat had said before the vote.
United Nations
UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, pleaded for the world to ease the massive burden on countries sheltering the millions of refugees and to open their borders to those fleeing the war.
He was speaking at a meeting in Turkey on Friday of regional countries on the refugee crisis after the United Nations launched a massive $6.5-billion appeal for aid.
“For me it is unacceptable to see Syrian refugees drowning, dying in the Mediterranean or pushed back at some borders,” he said.
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Families with children were hit harder than any other group and still are!
Anyone on low to low middle incomes with kids were plunged into poverty by FF/Green and FG/Lab governments – this is shown by statistics and data, the same statistics show that the wealthy in Ireland got progressively more wealthy as we got poorer – the obvious agenda is to redistribute wealth to the top!
People need to get out on the streets – child poverty is at record levels and this awful government has done NOTHING to improve the situation – they’ve made it far worse!
@David Grey: what do you class as the top, you know where you state there is an obvious agenda to redistribute wealth to? What income do you think families stop having financial pressures and suffering?
@David Grey: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/opinion/leonhardt-income-inequality.html I thought this graph is an excellent display of how things have changed. It’s US focused but it’s going to be similar here.
@Bilbo Baggins: @Bilbo Baggins: do you are totally ignoring the article, which is about the middle class, and instead want to focus on the 0.001%. I ask you the same question, at which level of income do you think financial pressures and worries end?
@Paul Fahey: about the top 1-3% I’d say Paul. I share your view though that this angle will be used to punish the top 60% instead. (Not ignoring it at all).
@David Mc Nally: really? If you believe families with a salary income of 100k have ordinarily more than one source of income you are wrong and have believed too many of the rhetorical platitudes and falsehoods spewed out with ease and no evidence.
@David Grey: Very well said.
Us families won’t be found on those paradise papers! If mega rich people and companies paid their taxes it might just help!
@Phil Keenan: Labour shamefully and FG only cut from the poorest in their 5 regressive budgets as ERSI already proved. Remember Leo telling families in 2012 to “take a holidayas they were not cut, but Leo and Labour took 9-12 euro a week of rent allowance,electricity units to the elderly and fuel allowance cuts in 2012 whilst only taking 2 euro a week off the wealthiest for the household charge in 2012. Joan & FG slyly cut the pensions of many men and women who took time off to rear their children in 2012 too.
Oh yes….we did not complete three or four mortgage repayments fully, paid over half each month for a few months, built up arrears….both working bit incomes reduced…..jaysus PTSB hounded us…..all paid up now…..but so pushy….and not for the people….to see the credit union do mortgages would be great for us all.
@Richie Curry:
Ulster Bank in my case, knowingly trying to rip customers off. Bet the executives didn’t loose sleep, weight, feel inadequate/suicidal or grind their teeth away !
Middle class had it the easiest from 2011-16 as ERSI has proved.
Latest housing bubble is well under way as anyone trying to buy or even rent the most basic of dives.
The latest housing bubble well under way. Anyone trying to buy or rent even the basic of dives off a a greedy & uncaring of basic habitation standards, only knows too well of housing crisis & don’t need last Thursdays Prime Time to tell them. What’s Leo and FG doing to help tenants by tax evading landlords & vulture funds?
Wealth re-distribution is the State plan.
Also know as having an inclusive society where all the people (especially the the top brass) can have an equal income and quality of life.
What they don’t say is that they need to fleece-tax everyone in the country to achieve it.
They just scutter on with communist babble like comrad Higgins.
@Cram Wood: What are you trying to say?
Excellent stock photo of ‘middle class worry’
I find the poor middle income landlords affected the most….. When the greed for rent increases kicks in, you have to be prepared for the extra tax that follows. Boo hoo!!!
Keep voting FG/FF/Labour and expect different results? The definition of stupidity.
They DON’T care about you. Wake up.
Hopefully there’re ready for the next one
What is “middle class” anyway? How does one define it, especially against such other classes as professional and managerial???
Aw
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