Effort needed to give Syrians respite from carnage
IT is good that the US and Russia - together with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran - have begun talks towards a truce in Syria. After the meeting on Saturday, Russia revealed that "certain ideas" were discussed and more meetings will be held soon.
Two weeks ago, the US broke off talks amid rising tension over Russian and Syrian air strikes on Aleppo. Washington then also cancelled plans to provide information about its own operations to Moscow. In seeming retaliation, Russian President Vladimir Putin upped the ante and suspended nuclear cooperation - to process about 30 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium, enough to make 17,000 nuclear weapons - which was signed in 2000. To reverse the suspension, Mr Putin demanded that the US lift all anti-Russian sanctions imposed after the Crimea annexation, compensate Russia for sanctions-related losses and reduce the US military presence in Eastern Europe to pre-2000 levels.
Obviously, that is not going to happen. Indeed, Mr Putin's response seems to have been a calculated move to rid Moscow of all entangling treaties with the US, perhaps to assert Russian power more boldly. No doubt, the global geo-strategic game will be played out in the years ahead. None of this will be of any comfort to the innocent civilians trapped in Aleppo, once Syria's largest city. About 250,000 people are under siege as air strikes by Russian and Syrian warplanes devastate what is left of a city that the government of Bashar al-Assad wants to retake from the insurgents.
It has been suggested that Russia is playing a double game in Syria: on one hand it pays lip service to the prospect of a negotiated settlement of the Syrian conflict while at the same time helping Assad forces gain the upper hand in the fighting. This may well be true. But there is no alternative than to deal with Moscow in the current circumstances. The Russians intervened in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime in September 2014. Since then, they have effectively provided a defence shield for Damascus that seriously limits any action the US, Turkey or Saudi Arabia may wish to take. It has also been noted that the opening in Baghdad of a coordination centre for the intelligence services of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Russia means that there is effectively a coalition of Shia forces, backed by Russia, in the region.
Washington seems uninterested in getting further involved in the region, although that stance may change with the new administration early next year. Meanwhile, America's main Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, seems to have put together a Sunni coalition and conducted joint military exercises with 20 other countries. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is active in the civil war in Yemen. In its 18 month-long campaign, Riyadh claims it is defending the regime of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels who hold large areas of Yemen. The fact is that Riyadh does not want Tehran to have a proxy presence in its backyard. The UN estimates that over 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have so far been killed and millions displaced since the Saudi intervention.
The jousting for dominance in the Middle East between the Sunni and Shia forces and their backers has a long way to go before it can possibly be resolved. But even if no single player can at this juncture decide the outcome, every effort must be made by all parties so that the people of Syria - and in particular Aleppo - get some respite from the ongoing carnage.
