International envoy Kofi Annan warned divided world powers Saturday that history “will judge us all harshly” if no deal was struck to end the bloodshed in Syria and chart a transition. As the West pointed to persistent opposition from Beijing and Moscow to a transition deal, Annan told a meeting in Geneva that the world would be partly responsible for further deaths if it failed to agree on a roadmap. “It is the Syrian people who will be the greatest victims, and their deaths will be the consequence of not only the acts of killers on the ground but also your inability to bridge the divisions between you,” he said. “History is a sombre judge — and it will judge us all harshly if we prove incapable of taking the right path today,” he said. Annan had convened the meeting of foreign ministers from the five permanent Security Council states, the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France, as well as regional powers Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait and Iraq, while conspicuously leaving out Iran and Saudi Arabia. A key sticking point in the talks was Annan’s proposal on how a power transition could be organised in Syria, where violence has claimed 15,800 lives since March last year. Moscow and Beijing were against Annan’s proposal envisaging a handover to an interim team that excludes those “whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardise stability and reconciliation”. The wording appears to imply that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would have to relinquish his grip on power for the idea to succeed, a proposal backed by the West.
Russia insists that Assad’s fate “must be decided within the framework of a Syrian dialogue by the Syrian people themselves.” British Foreign Secretary William Hague headed into the meeting, saying it “remains very difficult” to bridge the gap and that “I don’t know if this will be possible.” A senior US official also said Saturday’s bid to find a political end to the war in Syria “remain challenging” and a deal may prove elusive.
