[As Syrian forces and their allies retook rebel-held areas of Aleppo this month, Russia proposed new peace talks in Kazakhstan to replace those sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva. Russia also worked directly with Turkey — which changed its approach to Syria after years of backing the insurgents seeking to oust Mr. Assad — on the evacuation deal.]
By Ben Hubbard and David E. Sanger
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The countries pledged to
expand a fragile cease-fire deal involving Syria’s
government and the
opposition. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.
Photo by Natalia
Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse —
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BEIRUT,
Lebanon — Russia, Iran and
Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday to work toward a political accord to end
Syria’s nearly six-year war, leaving the United States on the sidelines as the
countries sought to drive the conflict in ways that serve their interests.
Secretary of State John Kerry was not
invited. Nor was the United Nations consulted.
With pro-government forces having made
critical gains on the ground, the new alignment and the absence of any Western
powers at the table all but guarantee that President Bashar al-Assad will
continue to rule Syria under any resulting agreement, despite President Obama’s
declaration more than five years ago that Mr. Assad had lost legitimacy and had
to be removed.
Mr. Obama’s reluctance to back that demand
with more involvement as the war escalated leaves Washington with little
leverage on a geopolitical crisis as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares
to take office.
Mr. Trump’s only recent statement on Syria
came last week, when he declared at a Pennsylvania rally that the situation was
“so sad” and promised, “We’re going to help people.” He vowed to extract funds
from Persian Gulf nations to build “safe zones” in Syria “so people will have a
chance,” without addressing the question of who would enforce those zones on
the ground or in the air.
But by the time Mr. Trump is sworn in next
month, such safe zones may be irrelevant, if the evacuation of Aleppo and
political negotiations proceed.
More than a year after launching the air
campaign that remade the battlefield in Mr. Assad’s favor, Russia appears to be
looking for a way out of the war. Analysts say that Moscow sees in the
transition an opportunity to end the conflict on favorable terms both for Mr.
Assad and for Russia’s broader interests in the region.
“Russia understands that nobody gives you
anything, you just have to take it, and in this environment, with the U.S.
retreating faster than the other side can advance, it’s just a free for all,”
said Andrew J. Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy who studies Syria. “When the Turks, the Iranians and the Russians all
agree on a process without the U.S. being in the room, you realize there is a
problem for us.”
Russian officials have made little effort to
hide their disdain for American diplomatic efforts.
Last week, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov
said working directly with Turkey on the evacuation deal was more efficient
than “fruitless get-togethers with the U.S.” On Tuesday, Mr. Lavrov said the
International Syria Support Group, which he and Mr. Kerry led since 2015, had
turned out “important documents,” but “has been unable to play its due
important role in seeing to it that adopted decisions are implemented.”
The State Department spokesman, John Kirby,
said on Tuesday that Mr. Kerry had spoken with Mr. Lavrov and Turkey’s foreign
minister by phone, and he expressed skepticism that the new effort would be
successful.
If the talks “lead to a sense of calm enough
in Syria that political talks can resume, then that would be great and that’s
what we’d like to see,” Mr. Kirby said, but added that “we have seen repeated
promises to appropriately influence the Assad regime in the right way on the
cessations of hostilities and seen those fail,” and said he held out little
hope this would be different.
As Syrian forces and their allies retook
rebel-held areas of Aleppo this month, Russia proposed new peace talks in
Kazakhstan to replace those sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva. Russia
also worked directly with Turkey — which changed its approach to Syria after years
of backing the insurgents seeking to oust Mr. Assad — on the evacuation deal.
Since the Syria conflict started in 2011 with
a popular uprising that evolved into a civil war, Mr. Obama has resisted direct
American military involvement, arguing that it would not improve the situation
and that Syria was not a core American interest.
Mr. Obama’s reluctance to challenge Mr. Assad
angered the Syrian opposition and allies like Saudi Arabia who wanted Mr. Assad
gone.
But the United States intervened in indirect
ways, running covert programs with its allies to give the rebels arms, money
and antitank missiles.
With the rise of the jihadists of the Islamic
State, who seized territory in Syria and Iraq, the United States changed
priorities. Washington led a coalition to bomb the group, also called ISIS or
ISIL, and worked closely with Kurdish forces fighting the jihadists on the
ground.
But that policy angered Turkey, which saw the
United States arming fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or
P.K.K., which both Turkey and the United States consider a terrorist
organization.
Over time, Turkey’s fight against Kurdish
militants took precedence over its desire to see Mr. Assad replaced.
Another factor has shaped how the various
foreign powers are approaching Syria.
“Trump,” said Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at
the Atlantic Council who studies Turkey. “One of his early signals was that he
was going to scale back support for the opposition that the U.S. has
supported.”
Mr. Trump has not articulated a comprehensive
Syria policy, but he has suggested he will work alongside Russia to fight
extremists including the Islamic State.
The signs of a Russian-Turkish rapprochement
were clear on Tuesday, despite the assassination of Moscow’s ambassador to
Ankara by a man identified as a Turkish police officer.
In Moscow, Mr. Lavrov and his Turkish
counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, placed flowers next to a portrait of the
ambassador, Andrey G. Karlov.
“Turkish people are mourning this loss as
much as Russia and the people of Russia,” Mr. Cavusoglu said.
Mr. Lavrov said Russia was “grateful to our
Turkish colleagues” for their condolences and their rapid response to the
killing, adding, “This tragedy is making all of us combat terrorism in a more
resolute way and is making our meeting today ever more relevant.”
At the meeting, Russia, Iran and Turkey
agreed to “the Moscow Declaration,” a framework for ending the Syrian conflict.
They did not consult the United States, nor did they invite Staffan de Mistura,
the United Nations envoy for Syria, who has spoken of new peace talks in Geneva
on Feb. 8.
“This is Turkey bending to Russia,” Mr. Stein
said. “This is putting a fine point on Turkey’s policy of ‘Assad must go’ no
longer being the policy.”
Iran’s presence is significant, as well. The
original evacuation deal was between Russia and Turkey and involved only
Aleppo. But Shiite militias loyal to Iran and fighting on the side of Mr. Assad
prevented the first buses from leaving, demanding that the deal be renegotiated
to include people from two Shiite villages in Idlib Province.
Iranian officials have boasted about their
fighters’ role in Aleppo and that of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah,
which helped besiege eastern Aleppo before the evacuation deal.
“As Russia has allied with Iran in the
region, it is the coalition of Iran, Russia and Hezbollah that has caused
Aleppo’s liberation, and very soon Mosul will also be liberated,” Yahya Rahim
Safavi, a military aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said
last week. “It shows that this coalition has an upper hand and the U.S.’s
president-elect has to face its weight.”
But the United States remains relevant in its
relationships with rebel factions and the fight against the Islamic State, said
Noah Bonsey, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group. Mr. Bonsey
added that Mr. Assad’s coalition probably still lacked the personnel needed to
take back the rest of Syria’s territory, but that as long as the United States
wavered on involvement, other powers would fill the vacuum.
“Insofar as diplomacy on Syria can accomplish
anything,” he said, “it will be between Russian and Turkey, with input from
Iran.”
Follow Ben Hubbard on Twitter @NYTBen.
Ben Hubbard reported from Beirut, and David
E. Sanger from Washington.
