Sharp disagreements over the future of President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday coloured the opening day of long-planned peace conference meant to end the country's ongoing civil war.
Western leaders and representatives of the Syrian opposition adamantly rejected any future role for Mr Assad, whose forces for months opened fire on a peaceful uprising against his family's four-decade rule, helping to ignite a civil war that has dragged on for nearly two years.
"There is no way, no way possible in the imagination that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain the legitimacy to govern," John Kerry, the US secretary of State, said at the beginning of the summit in the lakeside Swiss resort town of Montreux. "The right to lead a country does not come from torture, nor barrel bombs, nor scud missiles, it comes from the consent of the people. It is hard to imagine how that consent could be forthcoming at this point in time."<
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>The summit, dubbed Geneva 2 as a long-delayed follow-up to a 2012 Syria peace conference, opened amid low expectations. The previous meeting produced the so-called Geneva communique, which calls for the establishment of a transitional authority with full executive powers agreed by mutual consent. However, even the US and Russia, who are sponsoring the talks, remain sharply divided over what this means for Syria.
"It is not at all clear that the US and Russia have a common view of what a political transition means for Syria," said Fred Hof, a former senior US State department official who worked on Syria.
The continued disagreements with Russia present a major dilemma for the Obama administration, which has been trying to find enough common ground with Russia to push forward a diplomatic solution.
But few believe diplomacy could end a civil war in which Syria's array of rebel fighting groups and the regime and its allies appear determined to win on the battlefield. At least 130,000 Syrians have been killed and an estimated 9m displaced.
Passions aroused by the war even spilled out into the streets of the upscale resort where the first day of the conference took place, with video apparently showing pro-regime protesters clubbing screaming anti-Assad activists as nervous police officers looked on.
US officials nonetheless argue that bringing the Syrian government and opposition together could start a long-term diplomatic process to end of the war.
The build-up to the conference was overshadowed by disagreements between the west and its Arab allies, and the UN and Russia over whether to invite Iran to the conference as well as the release of a report by respected lawyers that claimed to document industrial-scale torture and killing by the Syrian regime.
Adding a further unexpected layer of complication to the proceedings, Syria's independence-minded Kurdish minority, denied a separate seat at the conference, solidified its claim to an autonomous region in the country's northwest, naming a regional government of "Rojava", which encompasses Hasaka province and the city of Qamishli.
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FOLLOW USΑκολουθήστε τη σελίδα του Euro2day.gr στο LinkedinWestern officials quickly batted away attempts by the Syrian regime's to portray itself as a bastion of secularism fighting al-Qaeda terrorists, which is how Mr Assad describes rebels fighting him.
"As we hear talk about terrorism today, make no mistake, it is the presence of the current intransigence within the existing government that makes this problem worse," Mr Kerry said. "That is creating a magnet for terrorism. Until a transition takes place, there is no prayer of reducing the increase of terrorism."
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said he was "surprised and disappointed" that the Syrian officials focused on terrorism instead of creating a transition away from the rule of the Assad clan. "The main course and purpose of this high level conference would be to discuss how to implement the Geneva communique," he said.
Syria's foreign minister, Walid Muallem hit back, saying that "no one has the right to withdraw the legitimacy from a president, or government, or law in Syria, except the Syrian people". He rejected claims that the Syrian regime was the author of the civil war, and instead sought to paint the conflict as the result of terrorism "exported by other countries".
In an emotional address, Ahmed Jarba, head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, told delegates: "We have become a people of martyrs burying their own martyrs . . . Syrians are all victims of one man['s efforts] just to remain on his throne. We are here to work for a transition."
Despite the differences, western diplomats and opposition activists expected talks between the regime and its opponents to start in Geneva on Friday. They will be mediated by Lakhdar Brahimi, special envoy of the UN and Arab League on Syria. Mr Brahimi said that he would meet separately with the two camps tomorrow to discuss next steps. However, it was not yet clear whether the two groups will be present in the same room. The opposition team consists of politicians and specialists as well as 15 representatives of armed groups, including the Free Syrian Army.
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