The White House on Friday would not rule out the possibility that a final Syrian political peace deal, if one could ever be reached, would include a re-election path for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
“The details are going to have to be worked out by the Syrian people, and that is entirely appropriate,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said during his daily briefing when asked whether a final deal could allow Assad to remain in power and run for re-election. “We’re not dictating the outcomes, here. We need the Syrian people to engage on this.”
After first boycotting the beginning of the talks early Friday, Syria’s main opposition group agreed to travel to Geneva to the opening of preliminary meetings aimed at forging a political process that could end the bloody civil war that has killed an estimated 250,000 people. But the Syrian rebels said they wanted to discuss humanitarian issues before beginning the political negotiations.
The discussions that began Friday are considered only “proximity talks,” the first step in an effort toward deeper negotiations to end the fighting in more than two years. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura invited both the Assad regime and an umbrella opposition group to Geneva for meetings with separate parties in different rooms.
After the High Negotiations Committee, the umbrella Syria opposition group, reversed course and agreed to attend the meetings, Kerry welcomed its “important” decision.
He then reiterated U.S. support for a previous U.N. commitment ensuring safe passage for opposition groups trying to provide “urgent humanitarian access for besieged areas of Syria.”
“The United States further expects that both sides in these negotiations will participate in good faith and achieve early, measurable progress in the days ahead,” Kerry said in a statement early Friday evening.
Syrian rebel groups are deeply concerned that the Obama administration is too close to the Iranians and Russians after reaching the nuclear deal with Tehran last year, and might cut them a bad deal that would include allowing Assad to run for re-election.
Speculative reports also surfaced this week that Secretary of State Kerry had threatened rebel leaders in Syria with yanking their funding if they did not come to the negotiating table.
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham late Friday praised the Syrian opposition group for agreeing to attend the talks and stressed that they only made the decision based on commitments from the U.S. that a political transition would be discussed.
“We urge the Administration to uphold those commitments as well as prior commitments to the Syrian opposition that Assad can have no role in the future of Syria,” the senators said. “If it does not, it would be understandable if the Syrian opposition chose not to participate further in these discussions.”McCain and Graham said they are “disturbed” by report that the United States abandon their demands for a transition government.
“The Obama administration should not be adding leverage to the negotiating stance of Russia and Iran any more than it already has,” they said. “The United States and the international community have an obligation to see these resolutions implemented and enforced as part of any continued talks.”
They also stressed that it “must be made clear” to the Assad regime that its forces and their allies must stop “indiscriminately barrel bombing civilian populations and allow vital humanitarian aid to reach civilians in besieged towns.”
Earlier Friday, Earnest referred questions about Kerry’s message to the Syrian opposition to the State Department, but added that he would not be surprised “if there are some representatives of the opposition who are saying they’re feeling pressure from the international community to engage in diplomatic talks to try to resolve the political situation in Syria.”
“If they are, that’s good because that’s what we’re trying to do,” Earnest said. “We want to bring both sides together through this U.N.-led process, and try to resolve the political situation inside Syria.”
When asked if Earnest meant threats of pulling U.S. and international funding support for the opposition, Earnest demurred.
“I’m not going to get into the details of the conversations,” he said. “We believe strongly that both sides need to play a constructive role in these conversations. And that’s not just the United States who feels strongly about this. It is the broader international community who is quite focused on trying to resolve the political situation inside Syria.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby also declined to get into the specifics of the discussions Kerry has had about the Geneva talks but said Kerry didn’t threaten or pressure the Syrian rebels.
“The notion that he threatened someone or that they put any type of pressure on these folks is not true,” he said Friday.
The Syrian opposition leaders’ participation in the Geneva talks, he said, “is crucial and would certainly be positive.”
