Syria Talks to Begin in Geneva Without Key Opposition Figures

While peace talks aimed at bringing an ending the crisis in Syria are set to begin Friday without further delay, the absence of a key component of the opposition threatens to derail the largest diplomatic push in two years to bring an end to the civil war.

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the representative body of a broad coalition of armed and political opposition groups formed in Saudi Arabia last month, said it would not attend talks in Geneva until an agreement is reached on allowing aid into government-besieged towns.

HNC chief Riad Hijab said that the delivery of aid is a precondition to his group’s attendance, AFP reports.

“Tomorrow we won’t be in Geneva,” Hijab told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV on Thursday. “We could go there, but we will not enter the negotiating room if our demands aren’t met.”

Hijab served as prime minister under Bashar al-Assad and is the highest-level government defector.

U.N. special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura said the talks in Geneva could be the last chance to end the crisis in Syria. More than 300,000 people have been killed in five years of civil war and millions have been forced to flee their homes.

The talks were meant to begin on Monday January 25 but the United Nations delayed the start date to Friday January 29 in an attempt to resolve issues over what groups would be invited to negotiate with the Syrian government.

YPG Planning Major Offensive Along Turkish Border: Source

The U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and its local allies are planning a major attack to take control of the final stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border held by the so-called Islamic State, Reuters reports.

A YPG source familiar with the plan told Reuters the offensive could deprive ISIS of a key cross-border logistics route used to transport fighters and supplies.

But a Kurdish offensive along the Turkish border could lead to confrontation with the Turkish military. Ankara views the YPG and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The Kurds and their allies, after a year of ground offensives backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, have taken complete control of Syria’s northeastern border, from Iraq to the Euphrates River.

Turkey has said it will not allow Syrian Kurds to move west past the Euphrates.

The planned YPG offensive includes crossing the Euphrates to attack the ISIS-held towns of Jarablus and Manbij, as well as the town of Azaz, which is held by other rebel groups.

The YPG militia has been the U.S.-led coalition’s strongest ground partner in the fight against ISIS, but its political wing, the PYD, has been excluded from the talks in Geneva due to pressure from Ankara.

Turkey, a major backer of the armed opposition in Syria, has threatened to boycott the talks if the PYD-YPG is invited. It fears that further victories by Syrian Kurdish groups will encourage separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority.

Aid in Syria ‘critically underfunded,’ Says Charity Before International Donor Meeting

The aid response in Syria is “critically underfunded,” an aid agency said just days before an international donor conference in London, Reuters reports.

More than one-third of the funds pledged to the U.N. for Syria in 2015 had not been confirmed by early December, according to a report by the U.K.-based charity Concern Worldwide.

“We’re still doing very basic humanitarian relief work – which is necessary but not sufficient,” said Simon Starling, the charity’s head of policy and campaigns.

“We’ve got to be talking about people having access to livelihoods, children being in school, and people protected as far as possible,” he said.

“Six years in, we’ve got to be moving to a situation where we’re recognizing this is going to go on, even if there is peace tomorrow, for another 10 to 20 years.”

Donations have in no way matched the scale of the crisis, according to Rose Caldwell, executive director of Concern Worldwide (UK).

“Donors must commit funds that match the scale and protracted nature of this crisis and they must honor these commitments,” she said.

“Even if a peace agreement was reached tomorrow, the impacts of the conflict will take years, if not decades, to recover from.”

The U.N. launched a massive appeal for donations early this month, asking for $7.7 billion to help 22 million people in Syria and throughout the region.

“Without a more coherent … more ambitious push by the international community to bring an end to the conflict, all this is ultimately a sticking plaster over a wound that’s gaping,” said Starling.

Recommended Reads

• The Washington Post: Why International Food Aid Can Actually Make Conditions Worse for Starving Syrians
• The Guardian: Hopes for Peace in Syria Look Slim Ahead of U.N.-Brokered Talks
• BBC: Syria War: What Hope for Geneva Peace Talks?
• The Wall Street Journal: Starvation Spreads Before Syria Peace Talks
• The Washington Post: In a Besieged Syrian Town: ‘We’re Still Starving, and it’s Getting Colder’

Top image: Former Syrian prime minister Riad Hijab, now coordinator of the Syrian opposition team, walks to his car after his meeting with French president Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Monday, Jan. 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)