An extraordinary Arab League meeting that convened at the level of foreign ministers Sunday evening in Cairo — at the request of Syrian opposition groups, according to the pan-Arab organisation's secretary-general — adopted a resolution that called on all Syrian opposition groups to be present later this month for internationally sponsored peace talks with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The resolution was adopted despite the initial reluctance — mostly staged for bargaining purposes, Arab diplomats say — of the head of the Syrian opposition coalition that takes Syria's seat at the Arab League's main conference hall. Ahmed Al-Jerba had been making press statements shrugging off the Geneva meeting and insisting that he would not be party to a meeting where the envoys of Al-Assad would be present. Al-Jerba is an Islamist figure — not one of the most radical — of the Syrian opposition who is essentially supported by Saudi Arabia that is reluctant to see any political deal involve the Al-Assad regime. “The Saudis want Al-Assad out; they want him humiliated and insulted, to make him pay for an implicit criticism of their king. And this is a wish shared by their archenemy in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Qatar, and supported also by the French,” said an informed diplomat working on the Syria negotiations file. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal was not present at the meeting. He sent an envoy in a step that was read by some Arab diplomats as “a clear sign that the Saudis would do everything possible to make sure that Al-Jerba and other Syrian opposition groups would not agree to a deal with Al-Assad”. This is not necessarily the consensus in all Arab diplomatic quarters. Some say that the Saudis are giving in to an American wish, expressed in an agreement with the Russians as part of a wider regional understanding, to give Geneva a try. The “initial” shift in the Saudi position, said one Arab diplomat, was made during talks with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry this week, whereby the top American diplomat had already fulfilled a Saudi wish to visit Cairo and give a nod of approval to political changes in Egypt — his first visit since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi. “Now it is for the Saudis to return the favour,” the diplomat added. Some are also arguing that the absence of Al-Faisal from the Arab League meeting is not necessarily an indication of the Saudi position on the Geneva meeting but rather a reflection of a wider inter-Saudi disagreement on where to move next — not just on Syria but also on Egypt and other regional issues. At the end of the day, Geneva II is expected, according to Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi, to convene 23 November with the presence of the Syrian opposition, the Syrian regime, and key international and regional players. The meeting would start a long political process — at least maybe, suggested Arab diplomats who were present at the Arab League meeting. In the words of one, “The attitude of Al-Jerba, who got into a confrontation with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari over US military support that helped get Saddam Hussein out of power, and the way he shrugged the explanation made by Zebari as to why Syria is different from Iraq, is the attitude of someone who would go to Geneva to come back with no deal and not even a beginning of a deal.” The fact that on the sidelines of the meeting at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League there was considerable discussion on how to provide financial and military support for the Syrian militant — and predominantly Sunni — opposition, whose leader, Al-Jerba, was saying that his country is occupied by Shia Iran, is yet another indicator for some Arab diplomats that the conference in Geneva is unlikely to deliver as little as the beginning of a peace process. “There are some crucial players who don't want this process and these players are not just Arabs, because Turkey is onboard, and it is now promoting the idea of establishing humanitarian zones that should be protected by NATO inside Syria,” said an informed source. The problems facing the Geneva conference are complicated, according to one assistant of Lakhdar Brahimi, the Arab League-UN envoy who is roundly criticised by the Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition, and whose rapport with Al-Arabi is way below average. “There is no blueprint, really, to take to Geneva, and to get the parties to discuss; there are only elementary ideas that would need serious political will that is obviously missing,” the assistant said. The Geneva II meeting was scheduled to take place in the spring of this year but was cancelled due to a lack of political will. It is supposed to build on a tentative agreement that was produced last year by the Geneva I meeting, which called for the establishment of an executive transitional government that would have considerable prerogatives in what would amount to an effective — if unannounced — transfer of power from Al-Assad to a new government that would mélange his regime, his sect, and the Syrian opposition. “Now we are getting closer to 2014, whereby Al-Assad would end his term in office and would have survived three years of opposition that turned military, and it could be possible to convince him through the Russians to decline to run for a new term in office — or something along these lines,” said an Arab League diplomat. She added: “It depends on what the Americans and the Russians would formulate as an initial idea for discussion in Geneva II.” In Geneva, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Brahimi was meeting with Russian and American officials to prepare for the conference both Arab and Western diplomats are sceptical will produce any result.
