The Vienna Talks and Syria’s Vague Future
Four years have passed since the beginning of the crisis in Syria but now, and after years of futile negotiations by the US and its European and Arab allies in the region and the diplomatic successes of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran is invited for the next round of negotiations in Vienna. Tehran’s proposals in the upcoming negotiations must be considered as an important achievement for our country. Iran’s presence in the recent Vienna conference showed that the West cannot ignore Iran as a regional and extra-regional power. Furthermore, negotiators realized the undeniable fact that, without Iran’s presence, a political solution for Syria’s crisis would not be achieved. In the second conference in Vienna, contrary to the first quartet negotiations, a 9-point statement was issued.
The crisis in Syria will not be resolved with a few rounds of negotiations particularly at this juncture when certain countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey take opposite positions. In other words, at the present time, it would seem impossible to reach a desirable solution for the Syrian crisis even with the presence of representatives of supporting and opposing countries; especially with regard to the positions taken by Saudi Arabia about the resolution of the crisis in Syria and Iran’s participation in this conference, there would be little hope for this conference to reach a resolution. But what is important is that Iran’s proposal will be discussed. Right now, general issues are discussed in these negotiations and the details will remain for future talks. It is hoped that in the upcoming negotiations Iran’s proposals will be considered as a desirable road map and be accepted by all western and Arab players.
During the past few years and in several negotiations which took place in Geneva, attempts were made, especially by Saudi Arabia, to prevent Iran’s presence and participation in these talks, but the Vienna-2 Conference showed that the regional and extra-regional players have reached the conclusion that without Iran this crisis will not be resolved. Even Saudi lobbies within the past few days with the US and Russia will not succeed because its policies within the past four years have proven to be futile and its European allies and the US have all realized that the role played by the Islamic Republic of Iran should not be ignored.
The issue of concentration for all these countries during the past few years was to form a coalition of the opposition forces of Bashar Assad in order to pursue their own policies in this country. Even some European capitals stated that they would give Syria’s embassies to the opposition forces; although they never took this measure, they took certain steps in this regard.
It must be said that for the resolution of the crisis in Syria, regional and extra-regional players must first reach a conclusion about the process of removing terrorism in this country and then reach an understanding with regard to the political solution of this crisis and the opposition forces.