Assad’s gains cast cloud on Syria peace talks

Syrian peace talks due next week are looking increasingly moot as a string of recent battlefield victories by government troops have bolstered President Bashar Assad’s hand and plunged the rebels into disarray.

The government’s adva-nces add to the obstacles that have scuttled chances of halting — at least anytime soon — the five-year civil war that has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the cou-ntry and enabled the radical ISIS to seize a third of Syria’s territory.

A proxy war on the gro-und between regional riv-als Iran and Saudi Arabia, disorganisation among th-e rebels after a top commander and several other local leaders were killed, rigid and disparate US and Russian positions regarding Mr Assad’s future, and a spat over which groups will be invited to the negotiating table have all ad-ded to the conflagration.

“I don’t think we should expect any major results,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics. “Assad really believes that time is on his side, that he is winning, that the Opposition is in tatters.”

The Geneva are meant to start a political process to end the conflict that started in 2011 as a largely peaceful uprising against Mr Assad’s rule but escalated into an all-out war after a harsh state crackdown. The plan calls for ceasefires in parallel to the talks, a new constitution and elections in a year and a half.

The fighting has intensified since Russia intervened militarily with air-strikes in September 2015, ostensibly to target ISIS militants and other extre-mists. But the airstrikes helped Mr Assad push back rebels on several fronts and capture dozens of villages in the north and west.

Apart from this, Syria pe-ace talks face some other hurdles too. The UN on Monday said it was waiting for regional powers spearheading the Syria peace process to agree on who will take part in talks starting in just one week’s time and raised the possibility of a delay. The peace talks, scheduled to open in Geneva on January 25, but invitations have yet to be sent to the delegations.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have urged these countries to “redouble efforts to reach that agreement.”