Long-awaited talks designed to end the civil war in Syria and elect a new government within 18 months are due to start on Monday, despite Syrian calls for the future of president Bashar al-Assad to be excluded from the agenda.
As United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura battled to keep the talks on track, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, described the Syrian government’s remarks about Assad as a spoiler, and urged Russia to haul Damascus into line.
“It’s a provocation ... a bad sign and doesn’t correspond to the spirit of the ceasefire,” the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, added at the end of talks with western foreign ministers in Paris on Sunday.
The Geneva proximity talks are due to start after a surprisingly successful two week cessation of hostilities, but with the main Syrian opposition – gathered under the umbrella of the high negotiations committee (HNC) – still facing military reverses on the battlefield at the hands of the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front. In common with Islamic State (Isis), al-Nusra are not party to the two week long truce.
De Mistura will regard the talks success if he can keep all the parties to the talks in Geneva, including their many sponsoring nations, in negotiation talks until the first planned break at the end of the month.
The pause is designed to give all sides to the conflict time to go back to their respective interest groups and seek a mandate for a further round of talks. The two sides are not expected to meet face-to-face, and De Mistura will shuttle between them, trying to avoid a breakdown over the issue of whether Assad agrees not to stand in future elections.
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