Syria Deputy PM: Regime to Call for Ceasefire at Geneva Talks

Local Editor

Syria's deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, said that the Syrian conflict has reached a stalemate and President Bashar al-Assad's government will call for a ceasefire at a long-delayed conference in Geneva on the state's future.

In an interview with the Guardian, Jamil said that neither side was strong enough to win the conflict, which has lasted two years and caused the death of more than 100,000 people.

"Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side," he said. "This zero balance of forces will not change for a while."
If accepted by the armed opposition, a ceasefire would have to be kept "under international observation", which could be provided by monitors or UN peace-keepers - as long as they came from neutral or friendly countries, he said.

Jamil's comments are the first indication of the proposals that Syria will bring to the table at the summit, which Russia and the US have been trying to convene for months.
Asked what proposals his government would make at Geneva, he said: "An end to external intervention, a ceasefire and the launching of a peaceful political process in a way that the Syrian people can enjoy self-determination without outside intervention and in a democratic way."

"The paradox now is that the US is trying to give the SNC the leading role. We're fed up with this monopolistic view," Jamil said.
He repeatedly stressed Syria was changing but it needed support rather than pressure. "Let nobody have any fear that the regime in its present form will continue. For all practical purposes the regime in its previous form has ended. In order to realize our progressive reforms we need the west and all those who are involved in Syria to get off our shoulders," he said.

He said Russia had produced evidence showing the rockets that were identified by the UN inspectors as carrying sarin were indeed Soviet-made. But he said they had been exported from Russia to Syria in the 1970s.
"They were loaded with chemicals by Gaddafi and exported to fundamentalists in Syria after Gaddafi fell," he said.

Source: The Guardian, Edited by website team