Beirut: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is sending a delegation to peace talks in Switzerland tomorrow that is significantly stronger than when a previous round of talks was held in 2012.
Army advances, rebel disarray and the grudging diplomatic engagement of the international community with his government over the issue of chemical weapons have all emboldened the Syrian leader ahead of the peace conference, experts say.
Assad’s regime and the opposition are scheduled to start talks on Wednesday in the Swiss town of Montreux, building on the 2012 Geneva 1 meeting that called for a transitional government.
“Politically, he [Assad] is stronger than he was at the time of Geneva 1,” said Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
“The opposition is also not able to win militarily, and it is clearly not united, neither are the backers of the opposition united,” he said.
Perthes cited both developments internationally and on the ground, where the rising presence of jihadist groups “plays into the hands of the regime” by prompting concerns about the future of Syria’s minorities.
Internationally, “Russia has managed to make the Assad government an accepted international player again through the handling of the chemical weapons file”, Perthes added.
The Al Assad regime is in the process of turning over its chemical weapons arsenal under a deal it agreed following a 2013 chemical weapons attack.
The regime denied US and opposition claims that it was behind the August attack near Damascus, but said it would hand over the banned weapons.
For the regime, the contrast is stark between today’s circumstances and that of 2012, which was something of an “annus horribilis” for Al Assad.
His regime was increasingly isolated, with the West calling for his departure and his allies China and Russia forced to veto attempts to impose UN sanctions on Damascus.
The opposition formed the National Coalition, which quickly received international backing, and on the military front the rebels seemed to gain momentum.
They were advancing in Syria’s second city Aleppo, setting up rear bases in suburbs around the capital Damascus and they killed four of Al Assad’s top security officials, among them his brother-in-law.
Against that backdrop, a so-called Action Group for Syria, including the five permanent UN Security Council members, Turkey and several Arab nations, drew up the first Geneva communique.
More assured than ever
It called for a transitional government with full powers but made no explicit call for Assad to step down.
At the time, the opposition said Al Assad’s days were numbered and his regime was close to collapse, but two years later, the Syrian leader appears more assured than ever.
In an interview with AFP ahead of the talks, Assad said there was a “significant” chance he will seek a new term in June and ruled out sharing power with the opposition.
Perthes said Al Assad’s priority at Geneva would be “to prevent an international consensus on his ousting”.
“This seems to be achievable for him, particularly in light of Russia’s position,” he said.
Despite the grinding bloodshed of the conflict, which is estimated to have killed more than 130,000 people since March 2011, Al Assad has plenty to comfort him.
His opponents, rebels and jihadists, have turned against each other in much of the territory they control, and the army has advanced in both Damascus and Aleppo province, with help from Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah and allied Iraqi Shiite militias.
The opposition is more divided than ever, particularly over its reluctant decision to attend the peace talks.
And its backers are either regional competitors such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, or increasingly embroiled in internal issues, like Turkey.
Ironically, it was the aftermath of the August 2013 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that put the regime back in the saddle, said Middle East specialist Xavier Baron.
“The chemical weapons crisis was an unexpected bit of luck for [Al] Assad,” he said.
“Just as it looked like he was about to face a Western military intervention that would inevitably have seriously weakened him, he was back in the international diplomatic game and once again an accepted partner for the international community.”
Baron said Al Assad wanted the West and Gulf countries attending the Geneva talks to “recognise him as an interlocutor”.
“The fact that he is considered a recognised interlocutor at the Montreux conference is already a victory for him.”
Nikolaos van Dam, a Dutch former diplomat and author of a book on Syria, said Al Assad’s situation had “substantially improved over the last half year”.
“Not only the Russians, but also the Western states in general are starting to accept the reality that Assad must be involved in any realistic solution, and therefore stay in power for some time,” he said.
