Not the best start to Syria’s Humpty Dumpty talks
The Swiss ski resort of Montreux is crowded today. The Australians are here and the Indonesians, not to mention representatives of South Korea and Mexico. To the naive observer this might seem odd, given that they’re discussing the war in Syria, and most countries represented do not have a dog in the fight.
Iran, however, which has many dogs, and fierce ones at that – namely thousands of Revolutionary Guard and fighters from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia it supports, all battling on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad – will not be here.
This is how diplomacy works. The Americans vetoed Iranian participation because the Islamic republic refused to sign up publicly to the communique from the 2012 peace talks, dubbed “Geneva I”. On Sunday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (below, right) invited Iran nonetheless. Maybe he was hoping no-one would notice because it was the weekend, or because he muttered “Iran” quietly in the middle of a long line of irrelevant countries invited along for the ride.
Unfortunately for Mr Ban, the Americans did notice, as did the Syrian opposition, who threatened not to turn up at all. In the end the UN secretary general was forced to rescind Iran’s invitation. This, again, is how diplomacy works – or maybe it’s an example of how sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
Not the best start to peace talks that no-one thinks have much chance of achieving peace.
http://blogs.channel4.com/lindsey-hilsum-on-international-affairs/start-humpty-dumpty-talks-syria/3323?cntsrc=snm_|596a8f44-c0b5-4363-91a5-6504fd209dab|2739783868|Jan-21-2014|%27Smoking%20gun%27%20threat%20to%20Syria%20peace%20talks%3F|
