No one at homePITY poor Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy for Syria. Talks aimed at ending the five-year civil war that has claimed more than 250,000 lives and displaced 12m people should have started on January 25th in Geneva. But disagreements over who should come and on what terms could not be resolved in time. As The Economist went to press, it looked as if the talks could at last get under way on January 29th. But as the veteran diplomat ruefully conceded on Monday, threats to pull out should be expected: “Don’t be surprised: there will be a lot of posturing, a lot of walkouts and walk-ins…you should neither be depressed [nor] impressed…the important thing is to keep momentum.”
Even that limited goal may prove dauntingly hard to achieve. Both of Mr de Mistura’s predecessors gave up after peace conferences they had convened got nowhere. Hopes of some progress this time were raised after a meeting of the 17-country International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in Vienna in November, which was followed by a UN Security Council resolution calling for talks to start in January that...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1Kd4gq7
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