Assad Regime and Opposition Will Attend Geneva Peace Talks. Ben Hubbard reports in The New York Times that an official government delegation will attend January’s Geneva peace talks with the “blessing’ of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian National Council leader Ahmad Jarba also says he’ll attend, speaking in an interview with Reuters and the AP.
“The negotiations are meant to lead to the creation of a transitional government with full executive powers to lead the country out of the crisis. But key issues, including who will attend and the role of Mr. Assad, have yet to be decided, and there is little sign that any of the warring parties are ready to compromise,” writes The Times.
A statement by Syria’s Foreign Ministry “struck out at Britain and France for saying that Mr. Assad has no role in Syria’s future. ‘Our people will not let anyone steal their exclusive right to decide their future and their leadership,’ it said.”
The opposition is holding fast to its own position. “There is no way that the individual responsible for the destruction of the country can be responsible for building the country,” Jarba said in his interview, referring to Assad.
Syrian Official Says Assad Should Not Step Down, Won’t Leave a Vacuum.’ Faisal al-Mekdad, Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister, told CNN’s Fred Pleitgen that the country’s fractious opposition is “living in a different era. These people are coming from the Middle Ages. They are against democracy. They are against elections, and they are against even the territorial integrity and unity of the Syrian people.”
Al-Mekdad also defended President Assad, “brushing aside calls for him to resign by saying that ‘at a time when the ship is in wild seas, the leader — the captain — should not step down.’
“We are ready to talk on anything but no way we can create a vacuum in Syria — a vacuum which will lead to the disintegration of the country, to lawlessness in the country. And our decision is to put all that we agree upon to a referendum by the Syrian people because the Syrian people (are) the owner of the final decision in the entire process,” he told CNN.
U.S. Offers to Destroy Syrian Chemical Weapons in International Waters. U.S. officials have told the Associated Press that “the Obama administration is offering to destroy some of Syria’s deadliest chemical weapons in international waters aboard a nearly 700-foot, U.S. government-owned ship.”
The plan would likely involve destroying the weapons in the Mediterranean Sea aboard the MV Cape Ray, as Navy warships patrol nearby.
“The Obama administration has used international oceans in other sensitive cases where land-based options were precluded,” the wire says.
“The decision to proceed with the chemical disposal plan would be made by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In a statement Wednesday in the Netherlands, the watchdog agency said the effort to ship Syria’s chemical arsenal out of the country ‘continues to pose challenges due to the security situation on the ground.’”
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