Flickr/UN Geneva. Some rights reserved.The Geneva talks that began on 29 January aiming to end the civil war in Syria were suspended and will be re-opened on 14 March. By the looks of the current status on the ground internationally, the talks will be trapped in a dead-end street.
It would be extremely wrong to put the responsibility for the suspension of the talks on the shoulders of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), which is composed of the members of the political and armed opposition in Syria, because the Geneva Talks were a dead duck to begin with. This op-ed will briefly articulate three reasons for this.
First it needs to be clarified that Russia is not a reliable partner to put an end to this humanitarian crisis. The Russian administration started to support the Syrian government with airstrikes in September 2015; they continued to carry out airstrikes in Syria while a number of peace talks were on-going in Geneva a while ago. It goes without saying that their presence in Syria hampered peaceful international efforts.
