Russia and the USA Want Talks Between Syrian Régime and Opposition

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On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russia and the USA would set up an international conference on Syria by the end of this month. He’s optimistic that it’d involve both the Syrian government and opposition forces. At a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Kerry said that the conference would aim at facilitating a solution to the Syrian crisis through political dialogue. Lavrov added that the Syrian government assured Russia that it’s ready to participate in the conference, saying, “But, of course, so far, these are just words that have yet to be transformed into actions”. He went to say that the Syrian opposition hasn’t commented on the proposal. So far, opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have refused to sit down for talks with the régime in the past, saying that Assad’s removal is a non-negotiable issue. Lavrov pointed up that the conference would be a follow-up to last year’s international meeting in Genève that drafted a peace roadmap for Syria.

The communiqué passed in Genève by the UN Action Group on Syria, which includes Syria’s neighbours and the permanent members of the UN Security Council, proposed to start with the creation of a transitional government drawn both from the opposition and Assad’s administration. Both Kerry and Lavrov stressed that Russia and the USA support the Genève roadmap, seeing political dialogue as the only solution for Syria. Kerry said that the alternative is increasing violence, a humanitarian crisis, and the country’s disintegration.

Moscow and Washington have clashed over Syria in the past; the USA put the responsibility for the civil war on Assad’s régime, whilst Russia insisted that the opposition should share the blame for the conflict. Russia blocked several UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, saying that they were biased in favour of the opposition. The USA supported the Syrian opposition, providing the motley coalition of forces (which includes many radical Islamists) with non-lethal military equipment. Recently, a bill filed with the US Senate proposed the supply of weapons to the Syrian insurgents. Kerry said the bill’s fate depended on the American inquiry in progress into reports that the rebels used chemical weapons, but added the matter may become a moot point if the government and the opposition begin dialogue. More than 70,000 have died in the two-year-long present conflict in Syria, according to the latest UN estimates.

8 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130508/181018883/Russia-US-Want-Talks-Between-Syrian-Govt-Opposition.html

Editor’s Note:

Let’s not put too fine a face on this. The USA has woken up to the fact that Islamist radicals would benefit from the toppling of Assad. Besides that, Russia and China are adamant… NO MORE BOMBS! To put the kybosh on the idea of “intervention”, it’s unaffordable (there ain’t nuttin’ in Motha Hubbard’s cupboard, kids… Bush wasted it all on the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan) and it’d destabilise the entire region (the Gulf States are most jittery on that score, and they’re American allies). Look carefully at:

Recently, a bill filed with the US Senate proposed the supply of weapons to the Syrian insurgents. Kerry said the bill’s fate depended on the American inquiry in progress into reports that the rebels used chemical weapons, but added the matter may become a moot point if the government and the opposition begin dialogue.

That is, Kerry’s given the US government a face-saving fig-leaf. The opposition will refuse to sit down with Assad… then, the USA will piously (and hypocritically) withdraw its former offer of arms. “They won’t sit down for peace talks… they’re terrorists intent on mayhem”. Let’s not be coy, the Boston bombing incident makes it politically impossible for any American régime to cooperate with any group that even looks like it might have Islamic militants within it. Any road, most of Obama’s rhetoric on Syria was election-year hogwash, not meant to be taken seriously by mature adults. Reflect on this… Wet Willy would’ve gotten the USA involved in a very sticky wicket just to placate the Religious Right troglodytes in the GOP. God IS in His Heaven… the Old Master does it again (just like when he defused the claptrap over Iran)… hey, anybody who still chain-smokes, backs Spartak, plays the guitar, goes white-water rafting, and cusses when he wants to can’t be all bad.

BMD

Aleppo Archdiocese Sez No News on Kidnapped Syrian Bishops

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On Wednesday, the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo said that it had no news on two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria, a day after a Christian source said that their abductors released the two men. Ghassan Ward, a priest at the archdiocese, told AFP, “We have no new information. We can say that (as far as we know) they haven’t been freed”, he added of Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Youhanna Ibrahim.

On Monday, gunmen seized the two bishops from Aleppo, but the French Christian group Oeuvre d’Orient said on Tuesday that their kidnappers had freed them, and they were already at the northern city’s St Elias Cathedral. The Paris-based association, which works to help Middle Eastern Christians, said it was “delighted by the rapid liberation of the two bishops”. However, Ward told AFP on Wednesday that there had been “no contact with them”, adding, “Efforts are continuing” to secure their release. He said, “We’re very worried”.

Syrian state media and church sources reported that kidnappers seized the two men enroute from the Turkish border, when armed men intercepted the car they were in, forcing them out of the vehicle. Sources in both churches said that they believed that the kidnappers were Chechen fighters, who stopped the car in an area outside of Aleppo. An official from the Syriac Orthodox diocese said in a statement posted online, “The news which we’ve received is that an armed group (of) Chechens stopped the car and kidnapped the two bishops whilst the driver was killed”. A source in the Greek Orthodox Church said the kidnappers described themselves as “Chechen jihadists“.

On Tuesday, the Syrian opposition condemned the kidnapping, saying that the rebel Free Syrian Army wasn’t involved and pointed the finger at the Syrian régime. The opposition National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said, “Efforts… to uncover the identities of the clerics’ kidnappers and to liberate them indicate that the Syrian régime is responsible for the kidnapping, and (the) killing of Bishop Youhanna Ibrahim’s driver”. Christians account for around five percent of Syria’s population, and they’ve become increasingly vulnerable to attack and abductions in the lawlessness that’s engulfed much of the country since March 2011.

24 April 2013

Agence France Presse

http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/no-news-kidnapped-syria-bishops-aleppo-archdiocese-085351182.html

Confusion Surrounds Fate of Abducted Bishops

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On Tuesday, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East denied that it circulated reports that kidnappers released the two archbishops abducted in Aleppo in Syria. The fate of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Youhanna Ibrahim remained mired in mystery after gunmen abducted the two clergymen and killed their driver in Aleppo Monday night. The news prompted global concern that the incident risked escalating regional hostilities. Patriarch Youhanna Yazigi, the First Hierarch of the Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, and a brother of one of the kidnapped, denied reports of the bishops’ release. According to the official AOCANA website, in a phone call to Metropolitan Philip Saliba of North America, he said, “These reports are false, and the release of these two hierarchs hasn’t taken place”.

Tuesday afternoon, Bishop Tony Yazigi told Reuters that reports claimed that the kidnapped bishops were now free, saying, “The two are on their way to the patriarchate in Aleppo”. However, by Tuesday evening, with no word on the bishops’ arrival, it wasn’t clear whether they’d reached the city. Details about the circumstances and location of the initial abduction were also unclear. State news sources initially reported that gunmen abducted the two whilst they were carrying out humanitarian work in the village of Kfour Dael in Aleppo Governorate. However, a source in the Greek Orthodox diocese later told AFP the men were in the rebel-held Bab al-Hawa area, near the Turkish border.

Italian Fr Paolo dall’Oglio SJ, who ran an interfaith monastery in Syria and participated in hostage release negotiations in Idlib before being expelled from the country in June, told The Daily Star that he had doubts about the story. He questioned why the bishops would be crossing the frontline into rebel-held areas, given the current security situation in the north of the country, saying, “I’m not astonished that they were kidnapped, but I’m astonished that they were travelling to rebel areas given that the church has been in solidarity with the régime”.

Government and opposition officials traded accusations throughout the day over who was responsible for the kidnapping. According to state news agency SANA, the government’s Endowment Ministry, which is responsible for religious affairs, described the capture as a “terrorist act”. It added that Chechen mercenaries working for Jabhat al-Nusra carried out the attack; that’s an al-Qaeda-aligned organisation the USA designated a terrorist group. An official from the Syriac Orthodox diocese echoed the government, saying, “The news which we have received is that an armed group … [of] Chechens stopped the car and kidnapped the two bishops while the driver was killed”. Dall’Oglio told The Daily Star he was sceptical of the details, saying, “I’d be very prudent with the information we have been given. How do they know they’re Chechens?”

The opposition National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces placed blame for the bishop’s capture firmly in the régime’s hands. A press release from the group stated, “Initial investigations conducted by the Syrian Coalition regarding the kidnapping and killing of Father Youhanna Ibrahim’s bodyguard implicate the Assad régime in this crime. The Free Syrian Army categorically denies any responsibility for this kidnapping. The Assad regime was angered by [Archbishop Ibrahim’s] latest statement, in which he stated that the survival of Christians in Syria isn’t linked to the survival of the régime”. The statement refers to an interview Ibrahim gave to the BBC on 13 April, when he indicated that the death toll in Syria’s 2-year-old civil war was 100,000, higher than the UN official figure of 70,000.

Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned as head of the coalition Sunday, also suggested the regime might be involved. In a post on his personal Facebook page, he said, “Whilst Syria’s seen thousands of its sons and daughters kidnapped … the latest kidnapping aims at igniting an unprecedented conflict that we should avoid. The kidnapper might be an external intelligence apparatus that’s pouring oil on the fire”. Whilst confusion reigned over the fate of the bishops, Lebanese and world figures rushed to condemn the kidnappings. The Vatican said Pope Francisco Bergoglio was praying for the bishops’ “well-being and liberation” whilst the Moscow Patriarchate called for the release of the men. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said the abductions wouldn’t yield the desired results, but didn’t speculate on who was behind the attacks.

24 April 2013

Nadia Massih

Lauren Williams

The Daily Star

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Apr-24/214852-confusion-surrounds-fate-of-abducted-bishops.ashx#axzz2RL9oO1tZ

Two Kidnapped Syrian Bishops Freed

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According to a Christian source, two Syrian bishops reportedly kidnapped carrying out humanitarian work in northern Aleppo Governorate have been released. Greek Orthodox Bishop Tony Yazigi said that the kidnapped clerics, Bishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East and Bishop Youhanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East, were released on Tuesday, and arrived safely in the city of Aleppo. It wasn’t immediately clear who’d abducted the men.

Syrian state media reported that rebels seized the two bishops whilst they were on a humanitarian mission and killed their driver. However, the opposition accused the régime of being behind the abduction, which Pope Francisco Bergoglio and the  Moscow Patriarchate condemned. Kidnappings have become increasingly prevalent in Syria as law and order broke down with the spread of the conflict between rebels and loyalist troops.

Al Jazeera‘s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut, said the kidnapping “generated a lot of concern to the Christian community in Aleppo and throughout Syria”. Several prominent Muslim clerics were killed in Syria’s uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but the two bishops are the most senior Christian leaders caught up in the conflict. Activists and human rights groups say that minority groups, including Christians, have become particularly vulnerable. Christians account for about five percent of Syria’s population, and they’ve remained largely neutral or supportive of the régime since the outbreak of the uprising against the government in early 2011. Still, the Syrian opposition also includes prominent Christian members, including George Sabra, a long-time dissident who became interim head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition on Monday.

23 April 2013

Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/04/20134235221315190.html