Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has dealt a blow to efforts for a peace conference, saying the time is not ripe, as Western and Arab powers prepared to meet with the fractured opposition. “No time has been set, and the factors are not yet in place if we want [the US-Russian peace initiative] to succeed,” Assad told Lebanese pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Mayadeen.
“Which forces are taking part? What relation do these forces have with the Syrian people? Do these forces represent the Syrian people, or do they represent the states that invented them?” Assad asked in typically defiant fashion. In the lengthy interview, Assad also said he was willing to run for re-election in 2014, in remarks that came soon after US Secretary of State John Kerry said that if Assad were to win, Syria’s civil war would be extended.
“Personally, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t run in the next election,” Assad declared. Kerry said after talks with Arab League officials in Paris that the international community would never accept such a scenario. “He has bombed and gassed people in his country … How can that man claim to rule under any legitimacy in the future?”
The so-called London 11 is meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Syria. The Friends of Syria group – Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States – was to meet with opposition leaders. The meeting hopes to persuade the opposition to have a “united position” for a planned peace conference in Geneva next month, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said before the talks.
The Syrian National Council, a key member of the National Coalition, has already said it opposes the conference and has threatened to quit the umbrella opposition group if it goes to any meeting attended by members of Assad’s regime.
Hague told BBC radio the meeting would encourage the opposition to unite and “go to the Geneva peace talks and stop the blood and talk together as Syrians”.
In his television interview, Assad accused Saudi Arabia of conducting the work of the US in Syria and demanded the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, stick to his mandate and not follow orders from other countries.
Brahimi is touring the Middle East to drum up support for the peace conference and was to visit Kuwait on Tuesday for talks with top officials. On Monday in Baghdad, the envoy told reporters that all countries “with interests and influence in the Syrian affair must participate” in the Geneva conference. The Syrian government has been battling to crush a 31-month rebellion triggered by its bloody crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired democracy protests. More than 115,000 people are believed to have been killed in the conflict. The United States and Russia have been trying to organise the conference on the heels of a landmark agreement they reached for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons.
