{"id":27093,"date":"2015-09-19T18:05:19","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T16:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=27093"},"modified":"2015-09-17T13:53:33","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T11:53:33","slug":"27093","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=27093","title":{"rendered":"West ‘ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria’s Assad step aside’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>West ‘ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria’s Assad step aside’ <\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Julian Borger <\/strong>and Bastien Inzaurralde<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A man walks among the rubble of collapsed buildings in Douma after what activists said were airstrikes by forces loyal to Assad earlier this year.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Exclusive: Senior negotiator describes rejection of alleged proposal \u2013 since which time tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria\u2019s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world\u2019s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martti Ahtisaari said the failure to consider the Russian offer had led\u00a0to a \u2018self-made disaster\u2019. Photograph: Ermal Meta\/AFP\/Getty Images <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Martti<\/p>\n

Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he said that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia sends artillery and tanks to Syria as part of continued military buildup<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an opportunity lost in 2012,\u201d Ahtisaari said in an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officially, Russia has staunchly backed Assad through the four-and-half-year Syrian war, insisting that his removal cannot be part of any peace settlement. Assad has said that Russia will never abandon him. Moscow has recently begun sending troops, tanks and aircraft in an effort to stabilise the Assad regime and fight Islamic State extremists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahtisaari won the Nobel prize in 2008 \u201cfor his efforts on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts\u201d, including in Namibia, Aceh in Indonesia, Kosovo and Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 22 February 2012 he was sent to meet the missions of the permanent five nations (the US, Russia, UK, France and China) at UN headquarters in New York by The Elders, a group of former world leaders advocating peace and human rights that has included Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe most intriguing was the meeting I had with Vitaly Churkin because I know this guy,\u201d Ahtisaari recalled. \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily agree on many issues but we can talk candidly. I explained what I was doing there and he said: \u2018Martti, sit down and I\u2019ll tell you what we should do.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe said three things: One \u2013 we should not give arms to the opposition. Two \u2013 we should get a dialogue going between the opposition and Assad straight away. Three \u2013 we should find an elegant way for Assad to step aside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Churkin declined to comment on what he said had been a \u201cprivate conversation\u201d with Ahtisaari. The Finnish former president, however, was adamant about the nature of the discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no question because I went back and asked him a second time,\u201d he said, noting that Churkin had just returned from a trip to Moscow and there seemed little doubt he was raising the proposal on behalf of the Kremlin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahtisaari said he passed on the message to the American, British and French missions at the UN, but he said: \u201cNothing happened because I think all these, and many others, were convinced that Assad would be thrown out of office in a few weeks so there was no need to do anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While Ahtisaari was still in New York, Kofi Annan was made joint special envoy on Syria for the UN and the Arab League. Ahtisaari said: \u201cKofi was forced to take up the assignment as special representative. I say forced because I don\u2019t think he was terribly keen. He saw very quickly that no one was supporting anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In June 2012, Annan chaired international talks in Geneva, which agreed a peace plan by which a transitional government would be formed by \u201cmutual consent\u201d of the regime and opposition. However, it soon fell apart over differences on whether Assad should step down. Annan resigned as envoy a little more than a month later, and Assad\u2019s personal fate has been the principal stumbling block to all peace initiatives since then.<\/span>
\n Last week, Britain\u2019s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, suggested that as part of a peace deal, Assad could remain in office during a six-month \u201ctransitional period\u201d but the suggestion was quickly rejected by Damascus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Western diplomats at the UN refused to speak on the record about Ahtisaari\u2019s claim, but pointed out that after a year of the Syrian conflict, Assad\u2019s forces had already carried out multiple massacres, and the main opposition groups refused to accept any proposal that left him in power. A few days after Ahtisaari\u2019s visit to New York, Hillary Clinton, then US secretary of state, branded the Syrian leader a war criminal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sir John Jenkins \u2013 a former director of the Middle East department of the UK\u2019s Foreign Office who was preparing to take up the post of ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2012 \u2013 said that in his experience, Russia resisted any attempt to put Assad\u2019s fate on the negotiating table \u201cand I never saw a reference to any possible flexing of this position\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jenkins, now executive director of the Middle East branch of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an email: \u201cI think it is true that the general feeling was Assad wouldn\u2019t be able to hold out. But I don\u2019t see why that should have led to a decision to ignore an offer by the Russians to get him to go quickly, as long as that was a genuine offer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe weakest point is Ahtisaari\u2019s claim that Churkin was speaking with Moscow\u2019s authority. I think if he had told me what Churkin had said, I would have replied I wanted to hear it from [President Vladimir] Putin too before I could take it seriously. And even then I\u2019d have wanted to be sure it wasn\u2019t a Putin trick to draw us in to a process that ultimately preserved Assad\u2019s state under a different leader but with the same outcome.\u201d<\/span>
\n A European diplomat based in the region in 2012 recalled: \u201cAt the time, the west was fixated on Assad leaving. As if that was the beginning and the end of the strategy and then all else would fall into place \u2026 Russia continuously maintained it wasn\u2019t about Assad. But if our heart hung on it, they were willing to talk about Assad; mind: usually as part of an overall plan, process, at some point etc. Not here and now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the diplomat added: \u201cI very much doubt the P3 [the US, UK and France] refused or dismissed any such strategy offer at the time. The questions were more to do with sequencing \u2013 the beginning or end of process \u2013 and with Russia\u2019s ability to deliver \u2013 to get Assad to step down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time of Ahtisaari\u2019s visit to New York, the death toll from the Syrian conflict was estimated to be about 7,500. The UN believes that toll passed 220,000 at the beginning of this year, and continues to climb. The chaos has led to the rise of Islamic State. Over 11 million Syrians have been forced out of their homes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have prevented this from happening because this is a self-made disaster, this flow of refugees to our countries in Europe,\u201d Ahtisaari said. \u201cI don\u2019t see any other option but to take good care of these poor people \u2026 We are paying the bills we have caused ourselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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West ‘ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria’s Assad step aside’ Julian Borger and Bastien Inzaurralde A man walks among the rubble of collapsed buildings in Douma after what activists said were airstrikes by forces loyal to Assad earlier this year. Exclusive: Senior negotiator describes rejection of alleged proposal \u2013 since which time tens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27093"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27097,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27093\/revisions\/27097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}