RUSSIA’S Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s decision to cancel Iran’s invitation to the ‘peace talks’ on Syria, due to start today, was a mistake.
Iran’s invitation was withdrawn on Monday after the US-UK backed Syrian National Coalition threatened to boycott today’s conference if the Iranians took part.
‘Of course it is a mistake, but no catastrophe has taken place,’ Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, signalling that Russia will be at the talks being held to try to get rid of Assad.
Russia had previously insisted that Iran should be invited to the so-called Geneva 2 peace talks.
Iran’s presence at the talks was vehemently opposed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, whose feudal rulers are determined to destroy it.
Washington had said that it would accept Iran’s participation in the talks only if it first declared its support for the political transition plan agreed at Geneva peace talks in June 2012. That plan is to establish a transitional government to be imposed onto Syria – a step, which would require Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power.
On Sunday, Ban had said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had assured him that Tehran supported this transition plan.
‘He has assured me that, like all the other countries invited to the opening day discussions in Montreux, Iran understands that the basis of the talks is the full implementation of the 30 June 2012, Geneva communique,’ Ban said.
‘Foreign Minister Zarif and I agreed that the goal of the negotiations is to establish by mutual consent a transitional governing body with full executive powers,’ he added. Iran was not prepared to confirm publicly that this was its position.
Meanwhile, President Assad has ruled out his retirement and said that the ‘peace talks’ must discuss ‘the fight against terrorism’ if they are to be of any value. He also said there was a ‘good chance’ he would run again in the next scheduled presidential election in June.
Attending these talks to impose a new regime onto Syria will be Algeria, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and the Holy See.
The whole planet is there except for Iran, a next door neighbour to Syria whose security is affected by the UK-US backed assault on that country, which has seen the latter holding hands with al-Qaeda led movements.
Russia is to be there since Putin wants to make a deal with the US-UK to save them from disgrace and defeat, in order to get them to stop poking the ‘Russian bear’ with a big stick in the Ukraine and the Caucasus. To try and achieve this, he is prepared to help them get rid of Assad, replacing him with a more pro-Western and pro-Israeli leader.
The tone has been set for the conference by the publication yesterday of a survey funded by Qatar – a major supporter and chief financier of the Islamist rebels in Syria along with Saudi Arabia – in which they declare that Assad is responsible for more than 11 thousand executions of prisoners since the beginning of the uprising.
The plain fact is that it is Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the US and the UK, that are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians in the course of their invasion of the country.
The purpose of this conference is to try and retrieve for the imperialist powers what they lost on the battlefield, by removing Assad and preparing the way for the destruction of Ba’athist Syria.
Workers of the world must support Syria against the imperialists and their Islamist stooges.
The best way to do this is to organise the removal of the Cameron government in the UK and the Obama regime in the USA, in order to get rid of capitalism and go forward to socialism.
