FILE – In this Friday, June 10, 2011 file photo taken during a government-organised visit for media, Syrian army soldiers standing on their military trucks shout slogans in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as they enter a village near the town of Jisr al-Shughour, north of Damascus, Syria. Nearly three years after the crisis began, Syria’s government and opposition are set to meet in Geneva this week for the first direct talks aimed at ending the conflict. With stakes high and expectations low, Syria’s government and its opponents sit down face-to-face at an international peace conference this week for the first time _ muscled to the negotiating table by foreign powers that fear the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings may engulf the entire region in sectarian war. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)
FILE – In this Friday, June 10, 2011 file photo taken during a government-organised visit for media, Syrian army soldiers standing on their military trucks shout slogans in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as they enter a village near the town of Jisr al-Shughour, north of Damascus, Syria. Nearly three years after the crisis began, Syria’s government and opposition are set to meet in Geneva this week for the first direct talks aimed at ending the conflict. With stakes high and expectations low, Syria’s government and its opponents sit down face-to-face at an international peace conference this week for the first time _ muscled to the negotiating table by foreign powers that fear the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings may engulf the entire region in sectarian war. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)
FILE – In this Monday, March 21, 2011 file photo, A Syrian army soldier steps out from the burned court building that was set on fire by Syrian anti-government protesters, in the southern city of Daraa, Syria. It began innocently enough in March 2011, with a short phrase spray-painted on a schoolyard wall by teenagers in the southern Syrian city of Daraa: “Your turn is coming, doctor.†The doctor referred to President Bashar Assad, a trained ophthalmologist, and the implication was that he too would fall from power like his counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt who had recently been toppled in popular revolts. Nearly three years after the crisis began, Syria’s government and opposition are set to meet in Geneva this week for the first direct talks aimed at ending the conflict. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE – In this Wednesday, March 23, 2011 file photo, anti-Syrian government protesters flash Victory signs as they protest in the southern city of Daraa, Syria. It began innocently enough in March 2011, with a short phrase spray-painted on a schoolyard wall by teenagers in the southern Syrian city of Daraa: “Your turn is coming, doctor.†The doctor referred to President Bashar Assad, a trained ophthalmologist, and the implication was that he too would fall from power like his counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt who had recently been toppled in popular revolts. Nearly three years after the crisis began, Syria’s government and opposition are set to meet in Geneva this week for the first direct talks aimed at ending the conflict. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE – In this Tuesday, March 29, 2011 file photo, Pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad supporters gather to demonstrate their support for their president, in Damascus, Syria. It began innocently enough in March 2011, with a short phrase spray-painted on a schoolyard wall by teenagers in the southern Syrian city of Daraa: “Your turn is coming, doctor.†The doctor referred to President Bashar Assad, a trained ophthalmologist, and the implication was that he too would fall from power like his counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt who had recently been toppled in popular revolts. Nearly three years after the crisis began, Syria’s government and opposition are set to meet in Geneva this week for the first direct talks aimed at ending the conflict. (AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman, File)
FILE – In this Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 file photo, which AP obtained from Syrian official news agency SANA and which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, President Bashar Assad gestures as he speaks during an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV, at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria. With stakes high and expectations low, Syria’s government and its opponents sit down face-to-face at an international peace conference this week for the first time _ muscled to the negotiating table by foreign powers that fear the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings may engulf the entire region in sectarian war. (AP Photo/SANA, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group said Monday that Iran must commit publicly within hours to withdraw its “troops and militias” from Syria and abide by a 2012 transitional roadmap, or else the U.N. should withdraw its invitation for Tehran to take part in a peace conference this week.
The Syrian National Coalition said if those conditions are not met by 7 p.m. GMT, then it will not attend the so-called Geneva 2 talks that are scheduled to begin Wednesday. The U.N. issued a last-minute invitation late Sunday to Iran, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, prompting the Coalition to threaten to skip the peace negotiations and throwing the entire Geneva conference into doubt.
The negotiations, which are intended to bring together the Syrian government and its opponents for the first face-to-face talks in the three-year uprising, aim to broker a political resolution to a conflict that has killed more than 130,000 people and touched off the worst humanitarian crisis in decades. Diplomats and political leaders acknowledge that the prospects of achieving such a lofty goal any time soon are slim at best.
Both the government and the opposition have suffered enormous losses, but even now, neither side appears desperate enough for a deal to budge from its entrenched position. At this point, just getting the antagonists into the same room to start what is expected to be a long process that could drag on for years would be perceived as a success.
But those hopes of at least getting the two sides to talk were up in the air again Monday over the invitation extended to Iran.
In its statement, the Coalition called on Iran to make a “clear public commitment” to withdraw all of its troops and militias from Syria and commit to all the terms of a 2012 roadmap for Syria agreed to by world powers that includes a transitional government with full executive powers. That roadmap is the basis for the Geneva talks.
“In case of failure to obtain the pledge, we ask Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to withdraw the invitation to Iran. Otherwise, the Syrian Coalition will not be able to attend the Geneva 2 conference,” the Coalition said.
Iran is Assad’s strongest regional ally, and has supplied his government with advisers, money and materiel since the 2011 Syrian uprising began. The Islamic Republic’s allies, most notably the Lebanese Shiite militant Hezbollah group, have also gone to Syria to help bolster Assad’s forces.
The invitation to Tehran from the U.N. secretary-general came after the U.N. chief said he had received assurances from Iran that it accepted the premise of the talks — to establish a transitional government for Syria, which has been led by the Assad family since 1970.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, was quoted by the official IRNA news agency Monday as saying that Iran will attend the Geneva 2 conference after it was invited, adding that it will not accept any preconditions. She did not elaborate.
Afkham later said doesn’t recognize the transitional roadmap, known in diplomatic circles as Geneva I, because it was not part of the conference that drew it up.
“Given that Iran was not present and had no role in the Geneva I conference final statement, it doesn’t recognize it,” Afkham said in comments posted on Iranian state TV’s website.
Saudi Arabia, a main backer of the Syrian opposition and a bitter regional rival of Tehran, said Iran should first approve the 2012 roadmap before being allowed to take part in the peace talks. “Iran is not qualified to attend because it did not declare this (accepting Geneva 1) and has forces on the ground,” state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed official as saying.
Invitations to the one-day meeting of foreign ministers at a Montreux hotel had been subject to approval by the initiating states, Russia and the United States, but the two countries had been at an impasse over Iran. The negotiations between the Syrian government and the opposition are slated to start Friday in Geneva.
The last-minute decision to invite Iran appeared to take the U.S. and its European allies by surprise.
In comments to a Security Council meeting on the Middle East, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power noted only that “as of this morning, Iran has yet to demonstrate its willingness to specifically and publicly subscribe to” the terms of the Geneva Communique.
Those echoed comments from senior U.S. officials in Washington, who also said that the United Nations must rescind the invitation unless Iran changes its stance on the conference. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter by name. But, their comments were similar to a statement the State Department issued on Sunday.
France, another strong supporter of the opposition Coalition, took the same line, with the country’s U.N. ambassador, Gerard Araud, saying “the ball is in Iran’s camp” and Iran “must accept explicitly” the terms of the 2012 roadmap.
In New York, Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said “of course” both the U.S. and Russia were consulted about the Iran invitation, and he said that if the Syrian opposition boycotts the talks, “that would be a big mistake.”
Syria’s crisis began in March 2011 in the heyday of the Arab Spring uprisings that swept away authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Unlike the others, Syria’s leadership responded to largely peaceful protests for political reform with a withering crackdown. That slowly forced the opposition to take up arms and gave birth to a civil war that has also spawned a proxy battle between regional Shiite Muslim power Iran and Sunni heavyweight Saudi Arabia.
The cumulative effect of the war over nearly three years has been disastrous. Syria lies in ruins, its economy shattered, its rich social fabric shredded.
A staggering list of figures testifies to the immensity of the conflict: 130,000 dead; 2.3 million registered refugees; an additional 6.5 million displaced inside the country; and at least 17 confirmed cases of polio, a crippling disease that was eradicated from the country more than a decade ago.
The rebels now control much of northern Syria along the border with Turkey, while the government has a firm grip on the capital and the corridor running north through the city of Homs to the Mediterranean coast.
The rebels seem incapable of conquering the rest of the country, while the government doesn’t appear strong enough to reclaim the territory it has lost. At the same time, neither side is exhausted to the point that it feels it has to cut a deal, analysts say.
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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Matthew Lee in Washington, Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, and Cara Anna at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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Follow Ryan Lucas on Twitter at www.twitter.com/relucasz
Associated Press
