Syrian peace conference postponed, before it was even announced

Geneva, 07 Nov 2013: The Geneva II Conference, which aims to find a solution to the Syrian conflict and the date of which had not yet been officially announced, has been postponed, until maybe next month. The announcement was made on Tuesday in Geneva by Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and the Arab League envoy, after a day of meetings with various diplomatic representatives.

"We hoped - he said - to be able to announce the date" of the conference, today but, he added, "unfortunately it is not to be". Brahimi alleged that "nothing dramatic" had happened in the meetings of the past few days and that the lack of agreement on the date was predictable. " But - he concluded - we are still striving to see if we can have the conference before the end of the year".

In reality the situation is complex: President Assad seems unwilling to talk about a transitional government , the opposition cannot agree on a leader and the United States has not responded to the Russian proposal to include Iran in the negotiations.

Any invitation to Iran, according to Jarba Ahmad , president of the Syrian National Coalition, would be a " provocation."

Jarba, who speaks for the main opposition group has also said that the coalition will take part at the conference in Geneva only as a united front.
Source: AsiaNews