US moves to salvage Syrian opposition talks

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry, cen­ter, vis­its with the trav­el­ing media aboard a plane en route to Lon­don on his inau­gural trip as sec­re­tary on Sun­day. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Jacque­lyn Martin)

MATTHEW LEE

Asso­ci­ated Press

LONDON — The U.S. is fran­ti­cally try­ing to sal­vage a Syr­ian oppo­si­tion con­fer­ence that John Kerry plans to attend this week dur­ing his first offi­cial over­seas trip as U.S. sec­re­tary of state.

A senior Obama admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said Sun­day that Kerry has sent his top Syr­ian envoy to Cairo in hopes of con­vinc­ing oppo­si­tion lead­ers that their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­fer­ence in Rome is crit­i­cal to address­ing ques­tions from poten­tial donors and secur­ing addi­tional aid from the United States and Europe.

Some mem­bers of the sharply divided Syr­ian Oppo­si­tion Coun­cil are threat­en­ing to boy­cott Wednesday’s meet­ing, which is the cen­ter­piece of Kerry’s nine-nation tour of Europe and the Mid­dle East.

Accord­ing to the offi­cial, U.S. envoy Robert Ford will say that the con­fer­ence is a chance for foes of Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad to make their case for new and enhanced aid — and get to know America’s new chief diplo­mat, who has said he wants to pro­pose new ideas to pres­sure Assad into leave power.

The offi­cial was not autho­rized to dis­cuss sen­si­tive diplo­matic mat­ters pub­licly and spoke only on con­di­tion of anonymity.

If the meet­ing with Kerry were to be post­poned, the offi­cial said the delay would likely hurt chances for short-term boosts in U.S. aid or shifts in Syria pol­icy, which is now focused on pro­vid­ing non-lethal and human­i­tar­ian assis­tance to the opposition.

The U.S. is con­cerned that the same kind of infight­ing that doomed the Syr­ian National Coun­cil may be hin­der­ing the SOC, the offi­cial said.

In addi­tion to Ford’s trip to Cairo, the top U.S. diplo­mat for the Mideast, Eliz­a­beth Jones, planned to head to Rome on Mon­day to add her voice to the argu­ment to oppo­si­tion mem­bers there.

Kerry is on a self-described “lis­ten­ing tour” of Europe and the Mideast, chiefly focused on end­ing the cri­sis in Syria.

The for­mer Demo­c­ra­tic sen­a­tor from Mass­a­chu­setts has said he wants to dis­cuss fresh pro­pos­als to ratchet up the pres­sure on Assad and make way for a demo­c­ra­tic tran­si­tion. Vio­lence in Syria has killed at least 70,000 people.

Kerry has not elab­o­rated on those plans, but there is inter­nal debate in the Obama admin­is­tra­tion about step­ping up aid to the rebels, per­haps to include lethal mil­i­tary assistance.

Key to increas­ing pres­sure on Assad will be Rus­sia, which has staunchly resisted efforts to push Assad out, to the increas­ing anger and frus­tra­tion of the United States and its allies in Europe and the Mid­dle East.

Kerry will meet Russ­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov on the sec­ond stop of his trip, in Berlin on Tues­day, and hopes to get a bet­ter idea of what Moscow may be will­ing to sup­port. How­ever, two offi­cials trav­el­ing with Kerry said they did not expect any break­throughs in the Ger­man capital.

In Lon­don, his first stop, Kerry was expected to be asked by the British about the administration’s views on Britain’s dis­pute with Argentina over the Falk­land Islands. Lon­don is look­ing to Wash­ing­ton to sup­port a ref­er­en­dum next month on the islands’ future. Res­i­dents are expected to vote widely in favor of remain­ing part of Britain.

Senior offi­cials trav­el­ing with Kerry would not dis­cuss pos­si­ble out­comes or the vote, and the U.S. posi­tion remains that it is up to Britain and Argentina to work out a res­o­lu­tion. Argentina claims the islands as the Islas Malvinas.

Britain asserted con­trol of the South Atlantic islands by plac­ing a naval gar­ri­son there in 1833. Britain and Argentina fought a brief war in 1982 after Argentina invaded the islands. More than 900 peo­ple died, most of them Argentines.

After Britain and Ger­many, Kerry’s 10-day trip will take him to France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Ara­bia, the United Arab Emi­rates and Qatar.

In addi­tion to Syria, he will focus on con­flicts in Mali and Afghanistan, and on Iran’s nuclear program.

In Ger­many, Kerry will dis­cuss trans-Atlantic issues with Ger­man youth in Berlin, where he spent time as a child as the son of an Amer­i­can diplo­mat posted to the divided Cold War city.

In Paris, Kerry plans to dis­cuss France’s inter­ven­tion in Mali.

Despite the numer­ous Mid­dle East stops, Kerry will not travel to Israel or the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries. He will wait to visit them when he accom­pa­nies Obama there in March.

Posted by AP News on Feb 24 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.