To Go or Not to Go: Syria’s Opposition and the Paris, Cairo, and Moscow Meetings - Syria in Crisis - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
▻http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=59590
The Paris meeting on February 26, 2015 ended in a tentative agreement between the National Coalition and the NCB to seek a solution based on United Nations resolutions, democracy, and the Geneva Communiqué, a document from 2012 that mandates a negotiated transition away from today’s political system in Syria. Now, a follow-up meeting is set to take place in Berlin, but this has reportedly drawn the ire of states like Egypt, which is suspicious of the National Coalition’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and of those within the NCB who refuse to compromise on their secular ideals and who feel threatened by Turkish and Qatari influence over the opposition.
All the while, the NCB has kept a close eye on the other side of the political chessboard. In late January, the Russian government tried to bring together Syrian politicians for preliminary talks in Moscow, also on the basis of the Geneva Communiqué.
The Assad government showed up after some friendly nudging, but the Russian organizers suffered from their lack of contacts and credibility in the Syrian opposition. Assad declined to offer any concessions to sway the fence-sitters, and the end result was that virtually the entire opposition boycotted the talks—including all armed rebel groups, the National Coalition, small pacifist groups like Building the Syrian State (BSS), and political moderates like Sheikh Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib. The Russians had hoped to get the NCB to come, but even though some individual members showed up, the NCB formally adhered to the opposition boycott. The conference consequently failed to produce anything except a set of principles formulated by the regime and its own proxies. These principles were received with scorn and indifference by most of the opposition and certainly by the armed rebels.
Now that the time has come to organize a follow-up session on April 6–9, referred to as Moscow II, the Kremlin has put in a little extra effort to sway the moderate opposition. President Assad’s government has been cajoled into releasing several hundred prisoners, and the Russians have quietly disinvited some of the pro-Assad pseudodissidents with whom they had sought to pad out January’s embarrassingly anorectic opposition delegation. They also bowed to another demand by sending the NCB a formal invitation, instead of selectively offering seats at the table to NCB leaders of their own choosing.
This did the trick. The National Coalition will again boycott the meeting, but both the NCB and the BSS have decided to go, adding a wafer-thin veneer of legitimacy to talks that will otherwise only include Assad’s government, pro-Russian figures, and the president’s own loyal opposition. The idea—which remains distinctly implausible—is that Moscow II should now lead to a Moscow III where more serious discussions can be held. There is even talk of Russia then joining forces with the United States to re-launch the UN track by way of a Geneva III.