Geneva 2: Countdown Starts
“We will keep our hands opened to dialogue with all who are politically different with us, unless their stances harm national principles…We will negotiate with parties and individuals who didn’t hand over their homeland to strangers…We will talk to those who dropped their weapons and we will be honest partners to all who are keen on maintaining Syria’s interests, sovereignty, safety and independence,” President Bashar Al-Assad said in his landmark speech on January 6th 2013 , outlining a political plan for solving the crisis in Syria.
The remarks have been an honest call on all the Syrians to stick to national dialogue to attain a political settlement that stops bloodshed, foils the Zionist-American conspiracy against Syria, prevents foreign intervention in the country’s internal affairs and attain security and stability in the homeland.
Now, the countdown for the long-awaited international conference on Syria (Geneva II), set by Ban Ki-moon to be held on January 22, 2014, started amid further escalation of terrorist attacks by the foreign-backed armed terrorist groups against the Syrian state and while the Syrian Arab Army is pressing ahead with fighting terrorism all over the country.
Invitees, including countries which have supported terrorism in Syria, are getting ready for the event, while Iran, which repeatedly expressed its readiness to contribute to a peaceful settlement in Syria, is still waiting for the green light.
Today, the foreign ministers of Russia and the United States, the architects of “Geneva II”, are meeting to add their final touches to the preparations for the international conference on Syria and to discuss the possibility of Iran’s participation in the event.
Many observers and political analysts expect nothing from “Geneva II”, yet the Syrians as well as all peace-loving people hope that the conference will adopt the issue of fighting terrorism as a top priority in order to bring the conflict in Syria to an end.
Aiming to make the conference a success, the Syrian government repeatedly stressed its participation in the event without prerequisites, while the so-called “Syrian opposition”, ordered by its masters, is still equivocating, placing obstacles, putting preconditions and giving no heed to neither the international will nor to the will of the majority of the Syrian people who want to protect their country from terrorism and restore the peace their homeland had enjoyed for decades.
Some observers and political analysts see that the will to hold the conference marks the awakening of the international community and the world public opinion about the fact that what is going on in Syria can’t be classified as a “revolution” or even a call for freedom or democracy. The scenes of destruction, killing and other acts of terrorism committed by the armed terrorist groups in Syria, have become a source of horror to all peoples around the world.
The nightmare of terrorism spillover will haunt the terrorism sponsoring countries, including the United States, some European countries, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia which were keen to recruit terrorists to wreak havoc in Syria.
Saudi Arabia, which sponsors the so-called “opposition coalition”, will try to foil the conference, simply because it doesn’t want a peaceful settlement to be attained in Syria, as ending the crisis will be a ghost haunting its ailing regime.
Since the beginning of the crisis, Syria has stressed that peaceful solution, based on national dialogue, halting violence and preserving the Syrian sovereignty, is the only way to get out of the crisis. It has presented all guarantees necessary for the opposition parties and individuals abroad who want to participate in Geneva. But many of these foreign-backed and sponsored parties insist to be tools for their foreign and regional masters.
H. Mustafa