There is no Syrian ownership of the peace talks

The Syrian Geneva process is clearly owned and directed by foreigners: the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and somehow the UN, through its Special Envoy. The Syrian side – the many parties to the conflict – are sitting in the margins or squarely outside, far out. They are not committed to the process, one should add. And if that is the case I do not see how such an exercise can achieve any meaningful and durable results.  

Obama and the four EU leaders: a comment

President Obama, on the last day of his visit to Germany, met with Angela Markel, David Cameron, François Hollande and Matteo Renzi. In my opinion, he should have invited Donald Tusk as well. This would have added strength to his speeches about the EU´s relevance. Words are important and the President said the right ones. But he missed the opportunity to show he means business when supporting Europe´s unity.

The meeting lasted two hours. Most of the time was spent on the situation in Syria, including the positions that should be taken regarding the Geneva negotiating process, which is now out of the rails, and the fight against the Islamic State terrorists. On the latter, it is clear the IS has been losing ground. There is less money available, less volunteer fighters, and greater military pressure on them. The additional deployment of 250 US Special Forces, announced moments before the meeting by Obama, is also a significant development in combatting the terrorists. I hope the Germans in particular will also increase their contribution to the ground operations.

The rest of the meeting focussed on Libya. Italy and the UK are most likely to intensify their support to the recognised Libyan Prime Minister. And in addition, we should see more naval patrols off the Libyan coast soon. There are some differences of opinion about the nature of such maritime task force: should it be a NATO-led force or should it be an expansion of the current EU-sponsored naval presence? In any case, the maritime effort should be a supporting one to the actions on the ground inside Libya. The priority is on land and that means stabilising the situation in that North African country.

Aleppo

The Russian forces deployed in Syria are now focussed on getting the city of Aleppo and its surrounding areas under Assad´s control. That´s were their current main effort is. Not on the Islamic State terrorists. As they do that, tens of thousands of people move out of the area and try to seek refuge in Turkey. This gives the Russians another reason to go for Aleppo: it ends up by increasing the pressure on the Turks. And, as we know, the Russians have an axe to grind with Turkey. This is a way of doing it. All this aggravates the geopolitical tensions and makes a political solution even more remote. Actually, at this stage I see almost no chance to get the Geneva talks back on the agenda. The bet seems, once again, to be on a military response to an inhumane chaotic situation.