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The opening by UN SG Ban Ki-moon was magnificent and should be lauded. The response by Syrian regime and SNC oppostion was less so, both were combative and used all available tools of propaganda to establish their animosity towards one another. The negotiations are due to start Friday in Geneva – YouTube video.
Speaking at the Geneva II Peace Conference, Lavrov said, “The Geneva Communiqué and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118 imply that all groups of the Syrian society should have an opportunity to be involved in the national dialogue.”
“However, patriotic opposition groups, which are acting inside Syria and showing interest in taking part in the Geneva II forum, are not involved in the process,” the Russian minister said, adding “I believe that the situation should be corrected by involving them in the talks. Moscow hopes that our LAS partners realize this task.”
“The same fully applies to the need of involving Iran in our joint efforts on implementing the Geneva communiqué without attempting to make a certain interpretation of it. The essence of this document is that questions of Syria’s future should be decided on the basis of mutual assent of the government and the opposition,” Sergei Lavrov said.
Secretary of State John Kerry’s Intervention at the Geneva ll International Conference on Syria
Thank you very much, Secretary Ban, and thank you, Ambassador Brahimi, for your commitment to helping the Syrian people find a new future. And I join with Foreign Minister Lavrov in thanking all of the countries around the table, all of the groups around the table. I thank President Burkhalter and the people of Switzerland for making this important meeting possible. And I thank the Russian Federation and Foreign Minister Lavrov for his cooperation and efforts together with us, working to try to initiate this process. I also want to welcome the leaders of the Syrian opposition, and I thank them for the courageous decision they’ve made. Everybody here knows the pressures that have existed.
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Now, lost in the daily reports of violence is the fact that this revolution did not begin as an armed resistance. This started peacefully. It was started by schoolboys in Daraa who are armed only with graffiti cans, citizens who were peacefully and legitimately calling for change. And they were met almost immediately with violence. When their parents came out to protest the arrest of the children, 120 people died. That was the beginning.And tragically, the Assad regime answered peaceful demonstration after peaceful demonstration with ever-increasing force. In the three years since then, this conflict has now left more than 130,000 dead, and it’s hard to count accurately. We all know that. The fact is that these people have been killed by guns, by tanks, by artillery, by gas, by barrel bombs, by Scud missiles. They’ve been killed by weapons almost exclusively of the magnitude not possessed by the opposition. Starvation has been used as a weapon of war. And most recently, we have seen horrific reports of systematic torture and execution of thousands of prisoners. This is an appalling assault, not only on human lives, but on human dignity and on every standard by which the international community tries to organize itself, recognizing the horrors of the humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded, the destabilization of neighboring countries, and the endless exile of refugees.
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Now, we need to deal with reality here. We really need to deal with reality. Mutual consent, which is what has brought us here, for a transition government means that that government cannot be formed with someone that is objected to by one side or the other. That means that Bashar Assad will not be part of that transition government. There is no way – no way possible in the imagination – that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain the legitimacy to govern. One man and those who have supported him can no longer hold an entire nation and a region hostage. The right to lead a country does not come from torture, nor barrel bombs, nor Scud missiles. It comes from the consent of the people. And it’s hard to imagine how that consent could be forthcoming at this point in time.JPost – Kerry at Syria peace talks: No way Assad can be in new gov’t
