Syrian rebels vow to keep fighting if talks fail

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: Syrian rebels vowed on Monday to keep fighting if the peace talks fail with the war-torn country’s government in Kazakhstan, as the two sides opened indirect negotiations.

The talks had been billed as the first time armed rebel groups would negotiate directly with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime since the conflict erupted in 2011.

“If the negotiations succeed, then we are with the negotiations,” rebel spokesman Osama Abu Zeid told AFP. “If they don’t succeed, unfortunately we’ll have no choice but to continue fighting.”

The rebels’ announcement came as Russia’s defence ministry said its warplanes had bombed the Islamic State group in the area around Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, where regime forces have been fighting the militants.

Rebel spokesman Yehya al-Aridi told AFP the opposition backed out of the first round of direct talks in Astana because of the regime’s continued bombardment and attacks on a flashpoint area near Damascus.

A session of indirect negotiations began after 1200 GMT following a short break in the talks. A Turkish official told journalists that “it is necessary to focus on reinforcing the ceasefire” agreed last month, hoping that “confidence building steps that could be obtained from Astana talks will contribute to the political process in Geneva.”

Negotiations in the Kazakh capital Astana coincide with a rapprochement between regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey, who together brokered the current truce in December after months of US disengagement in the conflict.

Several rounds of failed talks in Geneva saw political opposition figures take the lead in negotiating with the regime. But in Astana, the 14-member opposition delegation is composed solely of rebels leading the armed uprising, with members of the political opposition serving as advisers.

The initiative has been widely welcomed, but the two sides arrived in Astana with apparently divergent ideas on their aim.

Chief rebel negotiator Mohammad Alloush said in his opening statement that the opposition was focused on bolstering the nationwide truce, while Assad has insisted rebels lay down their arms in exchange for an amnesty deal.

“We came here to reinforce the ceasefire as the first phase of this process,” Alloush said in comments broadcast online. “We will not proceed to the next phases until this actually happens on the ground.”

Damascus has also called for a “comprehensive” political solution to a conflict that has killed more than 310,000 and displaced more than half of Syria’s population.

The head of the regime delegation, Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari, said in his opening comments carried by the country’s SANA state news agency that he hoped the talks “will reinforce the cessation of hostilities”.

He added the government was keen to separate the rebels from the Islamic State group and former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front.

Delegation spokesman Abu Zeid said the rebels were concerned with “more than just a ceasefire”. “The issue is putting monitoring, investigation and accountability mechanisms in place,” he told AFP. “We want these mechanisms so that this doesn’t play out over and over.”

Previous pushes for a long-term ceasefire have faltered, with both sides trading accusations over violations. Syrian state media said the regime had met the Iranian delegation as well as UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura ahead of Monday’s talks, to discuss their positions.

In his opening statement published by the UN, de Mistura said it encouraged the talks’ organisers “to create a mechanism to implement the consolidation and de-confliction ceasefire measures, and to see what else can be done to build confidence.”