Russia Invites Incoming Trump Administration To Syria Peace Talks After Snubbing Obama
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jan 19, 2017
Three weeks after John Kerry’s State Department was humiliated one last time when Russia, Turkey and Syria sat down alone, demonstratively without inviting the US, to discuss the terms of a proposed Syrian ceasefire, Russia has already offered a diplomatic fig leaf to the incoming Trump administration when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press Russia has invited the United States to take part in the upcoming talks on Syria,
“As I said yesterday, we have already invited the US,” Lavrov told journalists in Moscow on Thursday.
And since the meeting on the Syrian settlement is scheduled to take place in the Kazakh capital of Astana on January 23, three days after Trump takes over, the implication is clear: the invite is for the Trump administration only. Lavrov confirmed:
“We think it would be the right thing to invite the representatives of the UN and the new US administration to the meeting,” Lavrov had said on Wednesday, at a press conference summing up the results of Russian foreign policy in 2016.
Quoted by RT, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq told RIA Novosti on Wednesday that the UN “has received an invitation to take part” and will attend. He added that the UN representatives will “try to give maximum support” to the negotiations. UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has also been invited to the talks, though his humanitarian advisor, Jan Egeland, said on Thursday the UN’s role at the talks was still under discussion. “I do however take it for granted that Russia, Turkey, Iran, will understand the immense responsibility they take upon themselves as guarantors of an agreement of another process to enable a new beginning for the civilian population of Syria,” Egeland told reporters in Geneva.
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