New Syria peace talks aim to tackle core issues

© AFP/File / by Layal Abou Rahal | The negotiations at the United Nations in Geneva are part of the biggest international effort to date to end Syria's conflict, which has killed more than 270,000 people

GENEVA (AFP) -  A new round of indirect peace talks beginning Monday will see Syria's government and opposition engage for the first time in concrete discussions on the future of the war-torn country.
The negotiations at the United Nations in Geneva are part of the biggest international effort to date to end Syria's conflict, which has killed more than 270,000 people.
UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura announced that the talks will launch on March 14, the eve of Syria's five-year anniversary as a country at war.
Analysts say much has changed since the last round collapsed in February, but that the huge government-opposition divide will complicate a settlement.
The central obstacles are the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, presidential elections and the type of new government.
The last time the opposition and regime were in Geneva, clashes were raging across the country, especially in the northern province of Aleppo.
But since February 27, a fragile truce brokered by the United States and Russia has largely held despite each side accusing the other of violations.
The reduction in violence has allowed the UN to deliver humanitarian aid to some 240,000 people in 10 out of 18 besieged areas nationwide, a crucial opposition demand.
According to De Mistura, the negotiations will last two weeks and would first discuss an inclusive new government followed by a fresh constitution, then parliamentary and presidential elections in 18 months.
But this agenda "is not realistic," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
- Assad 'stronger than ever' -
Despite opposition and Western calls for him to quit, "Assad is stronger than ever and is going nowhere", Landis told AFP.
The Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, a broad collection of political and armed opposition factions, has repeatedly insisted that Assad would have no role in a future Syria.
"We will not accept Assad being imposed on Syria as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's puppet," HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet said.
For the HNC, Assad must leave power at the creation of "a transitional governance body with full executive powers".
In the opposition's view, this body would manage Syrian affairs while a new constitution is formed and until parliamentary and presidential elections.
But the regime has rejected this structure outright, saying Assad's future is not on the table.
"We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar al-Assad is a red line," Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told reporters Saturday.
"If they (the opposition) continue with this approach, there's no reason for them to come to Geneva."
Muallem also lambasted De Mistura for saying the talks would cover presidential elections, saying the envoy "has no right" to set the agenda.
The government plans to hold both elections as scheduled, with a parliamentary vote next month and a presidential election in 2021 after Assad's seven-year term ends.
It has repeatedly called for a "unity government" with opposition members instead of a transitional period.
- Federal system rejected -
The only point of agreement between both sides is the categorical rejection of a federal system.
Syria's Kurds have carved out autonomous zones in the north and northeast, hoping that a federal system would allow them independent rule there.
The leading Kurdish party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), was not invited to either round of talks.
On Saturday, De Mistura told Swiss newspaper Le Temps that although the Kurds were not invited, they should be allowed to voice their views on Syria's political future.
Russia and the United States back opposing sides in the war but have increased cooperation in efforts to find a solution.
About half of Syria is controlled by either the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda's local affiliate, hindering the implementation of any agreement.
"Asking the Syrian actors to agree has proven unsuccessful... because their ideological and territorial disagreements are so profound," Landis said.
"But all actors are so entirely dependent on their sponsors that they must comply with the wishes of their armourers," he said.
Andrew Tabler, Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says the US-Russian rapprochement will not be enough.
"Have the United States and Russia agreed on the need to settle down the Syria conflict? Yes. On a workable formula for doing so? No."

by Layal Abou Rahal

© 2016 AFP

Hollande loyalist Ayrault ushers in no-frills French foreign policy

© Khaled Desouki, AFP | Jean-Marc Ayrault au Caire le 9 mars 2016.

Text by Julia DUMONT

Latest update : 2016-03-12

On February 11, 2016, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the biggest Germanophile among the French political class, succeeded Laurent Fabius as minister of foreign affairs. His arrival signals a change of tone on several thorny diplomatic issues.

A confidante of President François Hollande, Ayrault is seen as a seasoned and cool-headed leader. But his lack of diplomatic experience will likely be questioned as he juggles the volatile Syria, Libya and Iran dossiers.
Despite his lack of experience, Ayrault and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier already embody the ideal of the Franco-German special relationship. Last month when the French cabinet reshuffle was announced, Steinmeier congratulated, in French, his "dear" Ayrault.
The return to government of Hollande’s former prime minister, one of the rare French politicians to have mastered the language of Goethe, thanks to his past career as a professor of German, pleased officials in Berlin.
"Jean-Marc Ayrault is well positioned to revitalise the [Franco-German] relationship at a moment when the two countries have realised that their relative estrangement hurts both of them,” Pascal Boniface, director of the French Institute of International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS), wrote in an editorial published on his organisation’s website on February 16.
The relationship between the two foreign ministers is so close that Ayrault was accompanied by his German counterpart on his first official trip abroad to Ukraine.
"Angela Merkel is right to open the doors of her country to refugees"
Ayrault believes that together France and Germany are the motor of Europe and should be united, but not everyone in Hollande's administration agrees. While Prime Minister Manuel Valls asserted that the EU should convey the message that “we won’t accept any more refugees,” Ayrault hailed the welcoming policies of the German chancellor. “Angela Merkel is politically and morally right to open the doors to refugees,” he said on March 10 on French TV station iTélé.
Merkel's government, which has already accepted more than a million refugees, must now deal with the still large numbers heading to Germany. Merkel has been criticised even from within her own camp and has been forced to take measures such as limiting family unification and accelerating deportation proceedings for people who are not eligible for asylum.
Barbara Kunz, a researcher at the Committee for the Studies of Franco-German Relations (Cerfa) explained to FRANCE 24 in early March that the political crisis the chancellor is facing could have serious consequences: “The big problem for Angela Merkel is, of course, [the risk] of losing the next election.”

"Encourage the Syrian opposition to return to the negotiating table"
In the face of the flow of Syrian refugees fleeing war and trying to get to Europe, peace in Syria is becoming an increasingly urgent policy goal. American and European foreign ministers are set to meet in Paris on March 13 to take stock before resuming talks in Geneva.
Ayrault said that the key is to ensure that “everything proceeds as we wish” in order to “encourage the opposition to return to the negotiating table.”
Furthermore, he said the Europeans must also ask the Americans, who, along with the Russians are sponsoring the truce agreement, "to be closely involved in monitoring the effectiveness of the cease-fire in Syria."
Continuing with Fabius’ firm stance on the Syrian conflict, Ayrault underscored at the end of February that France “won’t put itself next to those who want to sweep human rights and humanitarian law under the rug.”
The negotiations are a long way from over as all the parties remain at loggerheads. But on this count “Jean-Marc Ayrault has the sole advantage of being able to start over,” Boniface said.
“Nothing is ever automatic”
Another burning issue that Ayrault inherited is the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation. At the end of January, Fabius shocked the Jewish state by saying that if negotiations failed France would recognise the Palestinian state. Upon his arrival, Ayrault immediately adopted a more measured position and on March 9 during a trip to Cairo assured observers that “nothing is ever automatic.”
France’s chief diplomat will, crucially, be responsible for convening an international conference before the summer, as Fabius announced.
With presidential elections a little over a year away, Ayrault’s mission will be primarily, unlike his predecessor -- who famously signed the high-profile Iran treaty and COP21 climate accords -- to maintain a steady hand and not rock the boat.

Oil price 'may have bottomed out'

There is evidence that oil prices are stabilising and could even begin to rise again, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

It said lower oil output in the US and other countries was helping to curb the glut in the supply of oil.
The increase in supply from Iran has also been less dramatic than first feared, the IEA said.
Oil prices have plummeted 70% since June 2014, falling as low as $27 per barrel earlier this year.
The IEA, which coordinates energy policies of industrialised nations, said it now believed non-Opec output would fall by 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2016, compared with its previous estimate of 600,000 bpd.
US production is forecast to decline by 530,000 bpd this year, it said.
"There are clear signs that market forces... are working their magic and higher-cost producers are cutting output," the IEA said.

Supply and demand

There has been an oversupply of oil from booming US output in recent years, thanks to the spread of fracking.
Meanwhile, members of the oil-producing cartel Opec have been reluctant to cut supply in order to "put a floor" under the the oil price, for fear of losing market share against higher-cost producers.
These two factors sent oil prices tumbling at the end of 2014 and throughout 2015.
Lower demand for oil from China, the world's second-largest consumer of commodities, has also hurt oil prices and prompted fears of a global economic slowdown.
Many of the major oil firms have reported dramatic falls in profits and cut back billions of pounds in investments in exploration, while at least 5,000 jobs have been lost in the North Sea oil industry over the last 18 months.
Prices hit a 12-year low in January, but have since recovered to about $40 per barrel after leading Opec nation Saudi Arabia and top non-Opec producer Russia said they could freeze output.
Brent crude on Friday was 1.9% higher at $40.79, while US West Texas Intermediate oil was 2.5% higher at $38.77 per barrel.
The IEA said Opec output fell by 90,000 bpd in February because of production outages in Nigeria, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, which lost a combined 350,000 bpd.
"Meanwhile, Iran's return to the market has been less dramatic than the Iranians said it would be; in February we believe that production increased by 220,000 bpd and provisionally, it appears that Iran's return will be gradual," the IEA said.
Iran has promised to add as much as one million bpd to global supply after securing a deal with the West in January that has seen the easing of international sanctions, imposed on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme.

Seeking 'balance'

The IEA said inventories in industrialised member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had declined in February for the first time in a year, although crude in floating storage increased.
"For prices, there may be light at the end of what has been a long, dark tunnel, but we cannot be precisely sure when in 2017 the oil market will achieve the much-desired balance. It is clear that the current direction of travel is the correct one, although with a long way to go," the IEA added.
While demand for oil reached a near five-year high in the middle of 2015, prompted by lower prices and countries such as China and India building up stockpiles, it has slowed significantly since the start of the year.
And the IEA warned: "The risks to global oil demand growth are almost certainly on the downside."
It said it expected demand to be flat in the US, the world's largest consumer of oil, this year.
And it said demand could weaken "if prices maintain their recent upward momentum".
Demand in China was forecast to grow by 330,000 bpd this year, well below the 10-year average of 440,000 bpd.
"We expect India and other smaller non-OECD Asian economies and the Middle East to provide most of the 2016 growth. The foundations for global demand growth are sound, but not rock-solid," the IEA said.

Syria conflict: Government sets conditions for new peace talks

The Syrian government says it will send a delegation to fresh peace talks due to start in Geneva on Monday, but has put limits on the agenda.

Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, speaking in Damascus, ruled out any debate of presidential elections.
An opposition spokesman said the government's pre-conditions could halt the talks before they had even started.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to meet his German, French, and British counterparts on Sunday.
Earlier, the US said violence had fallen dramatically since a cessation of hostilities began two weeks ago.
The main Syrian opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said on Friday it would push for an interim government with full executive powers in which President Bashar al-Assad and the current leadership would have no role.
The fate of President Assad has been one of the main stumbling blocks in previous rounds of tentative talks.

UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura has said he wants to see presidential elections in the next 18 months, but on Saturday Mr Muallem dismissed the idea.

"Neither he nor anyone else has the right to talk about presidential elections. This is an exclusive right of the Syrian people,'' he said.
He described the opposition's demands for an interim government with full executive powers as a "red line".
"If this is what they [the opposition] think, I advise them not to come to the negotiations so that they don't make us tired and we don't make them tired," Mr Muallem said.
He said the Syrian government delegation would return to Damascus within 24 hours if the opposition did not turn up.
HNC spokesman Monzer Makhous accused Mr Muallem of "putting the nails in the coffin of Geneva".
"Muallem is stopping Geneva before it starts," he told Al Arabiya Al Hadath TV.

---

A fragile process - Lyse Doucet, BBC chief international correspondent

Syria's warring sides are under significant pressure from their respective backers to go to Geneva. No one wants to be blamed for any breakdown. So they are likely to keep their pledge to show up.
But there is an unwavering red line for Damascus - no discussion of President Assad's role, not even of presidential elections. Never mind that UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said elections would be discussed. Mr Muallem - and presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban in a BBC interview - say Mr de Mistura could not "dictate" the agenda.
The Syrian government has been emboldened by Russia's immense military support, as well its diplomatic weight which is shaping this new process. It is still not clear what Russia expects in Geneva. And the opposition, and its backers, have their own red line on President Assad's future.
Despite a truce that, unexpectedly, has largely held for two weeks, the gaps remain dangerously wide in these very early stages of a very fragile process.

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The HNC has already said it will attend the UN-sponsored indirect talks in Geneva. The last round collapsed in February without agreement.
A temporary cessation of hostilities agreed by most participants in the conflict began at the end of last month. It excludes so-called Islamic State (IS) and al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's branch in Syria.








US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday that US and Russian officials were meeting to discuss alleged breaches of the temporary truce by government forces.
But he said "perceived" violations of the cessation of hostilities should not derail the Geneva talks.
"The level of violence by all accounts has been reduced by 80-90%, which is very, very significant," he said.
"We believe that the start of talks this next week in Geneva presents a critical moment for bringing the political solution to the table that we've all been waiting for, even as we extend the humanitarian assistance and continue to try to reduce the violence."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said air raids by the Syrian government had killed seven civilians in Aleppo on Friday. The claim cannot be independently verified.
More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and millions more have been forced from their homes in five years of Syria's civil war that began with an uprising against Mr Assad.

US election 2016: Obama warns against campaign anger

US President Barack Obama has warned White House contenders to avoid raising tensions, a day after a rally by Donald Trump was called off amid clashes.

Mr Obama said candidates should not resort to "insults" and "certainly not violence against other Americans".
Mr Trump, who leads the race for the Republican nomination, cancelled his Chicago rally after fighting broke out between his supporters and protesters.
His rivals and others have accused him of using inflammatory rhetoric.
Mr Obama, who will be standing down next January following November's presidential election, was speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Dallas on Saturday.
He said: "What the folks who are running for office should be focused on is how we can make it even better - not insults and schoolyard taunts and manufacturing facts, not divisiveness along the lines of race and faith."

The clashes at Mr Trump's Chicago rally on Friday began more than an hour before the event was due to start, and continued after it was cancelled.
Violent scuffles were sparked by Trump supporters attempting to wrestle flags from protesters.
One protester had to be physically removed from the stage. The clashes continued outside the venue.

'Tremendous anger'

On Saturday Mr Trump campaigned in Ohio, one of several key states - also including Florida and Ohio - holding primaries on Tuesday.
In Dayton, Ohio, he was briefly surrounded by Secret Service agents on stage after a man tried to breach the security cordon.
Mr Trump has taken a strong anti-immigrant stance, promising to build a "great wall" at the border with Mexico.
Commenting on relations between Muslims and America earlier this week, he said: "Islam hates us."


Speaking to Fox News after Friday's events in Chicago, Mr Trump denied fostering division.
"I represent a large group of people that have a lot of anger," he said. "There is tremendous anger out there on both sides."
Mr Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, have both called the incident "sad".
Texas Senator Cruz accused Mr Trump of creating "an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discourse".

Mr Rubio and another Republican challenger, John Kasich, suggested they might not rally behind Mr Trump if he wins the nomination.
Mr Rubio said it was "getting harder every day" to keep his promise to unite behind the eventual Republican nominee.
Mr Kasich said Mr Trump's rhetoric "makes it very difficult" to support him.
On Saturday, party contests are being held in Wyoming, Washington DC, the Northern Mariana Islands and the nearby island territory of Guam.
In the Democratic race. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is continuing his challenge against frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Letter from africa: Ghana opens doors to other Africans

In our series of letters from African journalists, Ghanaian writer Elizabeth Ohene reflects on Ghana's decision to remove visa requirements for citizens of all African countries.

After President John Dramani Mahama delivered his State of the Nation address two weeks ago, most of the discussions were on local and internal affairs, and this being an election year in the country, the debates were heated and will continue for a long time.
But hidden somewhere in the speech and lost in all the discussion was a major foreign affairs initiative which slipped by without media reporting or analysis and it seems likely people may have missed this completely.






Ghana's new visa-on-arrival policy for citizens of African Unity member states, to be introduced from July, only came to light after an announcement from the African Union.
Nationals from African countries complain loudly about the humiliations they go through to get visas for Europe and the United States but the process for African visas is often just as frustrating.

Anyone who has tried to cross borders on the African continent will have experienced the difficulties with travelling in Africa.
Air fares cost more than anywhere else and few roads or railways connect the countries to each other.
The immigration and police check points turn the journeys into veritable obstacle courses.




We no longer have to go through Europe to fly to each other's countries, but flight connections are so few and so random, you are tempted to resort to the old routes through Europe to go to the country next door.
However, this is nothing compared to the hassle one has to go through to get visas for another African country.
Business people trading in the continent felt frustrated in the past at spending weeks trying to get visas for each country.
They pointed out that once armed with a European Schengen visa, they could travel through many European countries and conduct business without hassle.

Pointless bureaucracies

Unsurprisingly Ecowas, the West African regional body established in 1975 was at the time considered an attractive union due to the introduction of visa-free travel among member states.
Continental organizations like the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), formed to foster cooperation between African states and its successor the African Union (AU), launched in 2002, have few passionate supporters these days in Ghana as they are seen as pointless bureaucracies that have no bearing on the lives of people.
President Mahama's policy could boost AU's significance once again.
African unity was taken very seriously here in Ghana. It was our first President, Kwame Nkrumah, who was the driving force behind the establishment of the OAU back in 1963.


During the struggle for independence, Ghana provided a place of refuge for many freedom fighters, especially from South Africa with many being given Ghanaian passports.
As countries gained independence, Ghanaians were dismayed to discover they were not particularly welcome in these countries.
In the early years of Ghana's independence, and before the establishment of Ecowas, there were visa exemptions for "persons of African descent" born in the neighbouring west African countries, and members of the Casablanca group, which consisted of Guinea, Tunisia, Mali, United Arab Republic, Morocco and Algeria.
But these arrangements were scrapped after the overthrow of President Nkrumah.
With the new visa policy, Ghanaians will be watching to see if the number of non-Ecowas African nationals coming to Ghana will rise.
We in Ghana have a reputation for restless feet and are always trying to find new destinations to get to.
Obtaining visas for travel is often the greatest obstacle to travel and any country that makes it easier for us to enter becomes very attractive.
Whilst many here will be feeling that Ghana is taking a lead in implementing an AU directive, there will be greater interest in knowing how many other African countries will be allowing Ghanaians to enter their countries on a visa-on arrival policy.

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Merkel faces test as Germany votes in regional elections

Germans are set to vote in three regional elections seen as a test of support for Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy towards refugees.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is expected to make gains amid unease over Mrs Merkel's so-called "open door" policy.
More than a million migrants and refugees entered Germany in 2015.
Asked on Saturday how she was preparing for Sunday's elections, Mrs Merkel said: "I'm crossing my fingers."
Polls suggest that her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will remain the biggest party in Saxony-Anhalt in the east of the country.
It faces defeat to the Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg in the west, where it is currently the largest party.
And in Rhineland-Palatinate, where the CDU came a close second last time, the race is on a knife edge.
Polls put the AfD's support as high as 19% in Saxony-Anhalt, where the CDU and the Social Democrats now govern in coalition.
If the AfD performs as well as the polls indicate, the coalition partners may need to team up with a third party to assemble a majority.




Already represented in five of Germany's 16 regional parliaments, the AfD has campaigned on slogans such as "Secure the borders" and "Stop the asylum chaos".
German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on Saturday that gains for the AfD would not change his government's stance on immigration.
He said: "There is a clear position that we stand by: humanity and solidarity. We will not change our position now.
But in Berlin, about 2,000 right-wing demonstrators carrying German flags chanted "Merkel must go!" and "We are the people!".








A failure to win at least two of the three states would be a blow for Mrs Merkel, just as she is trying to push through an EU deal with Turkey to reduce the numbers of migrants and refugees entering western Europe.
The chancellor alarmed many European leaders at a summit earlier this week by promoting a last-minute draft deal with Turkey to stop the migrant flow, and demanding their support.
Ms Merkel still needs to complete that deal at another summit at the end of this week. If her party performs poorly on Sunday, she will go into that meeting weakened.
The meetings and demonstrations came as thousands of migrants have massed in muddy camps in the Greek border town of Idomeni after countries across the Balkans closed their borders.