The people of Syria face a miserable future as the civil war grinds on with little hope for any peaceful settlement. The bewildering variety of militias and armed forces that dominate the fighting have little interest in making the necessary political compromises that would end the fighting, and no power is strong enough to force them to stop fighting.
So it is deeply depressing but not a real shock that Mohammad Alloush, the chief negotiator of Syria’s main opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee, has resigned over the failure of the current round of peace talks.
Alloush said that the talks had not brought a political deal or even eased the plight of Syrians in besieged areas, where nearly half a million Syrians are trapped in sieges, suffering starvation and being attacked and bombed by the armed forces that control their areas.
Alloush blamed Bashar Al Assad’s government for continuing the fighting during the last three rounds of UN-backed talks, and Al Assad’s Russian allies for enabling the regime forces to continue fighting. Alloush is also the representative of the powerful Saudi-backed Jaish Al Islam rebel group and he commented that the talks had failed to even secure the release of thousands of prisoners in the regime’s custody.
If there has to be any hope in Syria, then all parties have to agree that talks should be accompanied by confidence-building measures.
This was not happening and while the Syrians have their essential role to play, the international community should do more to put pressure on the Russians to bring Al Assad to the table.
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