Britain's Cameron: Don't let planning for Syria talks get bogged down

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday warned against allowing planning for a peace conference on Syria's 2-year-old civil war to get bogged down, saying a transitional government must be agreed as soon as possible by the warring parties.

Speaking to reporters at the United Nations, Cameron said he fully supports a U.S.-Russian initiative to organize a conference in early June that would include both the Syrian government and rebels as participants.

"What is important here is to make sure we really put pressure on the participants to bring forward the necessary names for a transitional government and that we start proper detailed negotiations," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday they believed they could pull off peace talks on Syria, where their nations back opposing sides in a war that the United Nations says has cost more than 80,000 lives.

Differences between Russia, a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad and one of his main arms suppliers, and the United States, which supports the rebels trying to topple him, have long paralyzed the U.N. Security Council and prevented it from acting on the war in Syria.

Cameron suggested he was worried that planning for a peace conference in Geneva could take too long, adding that swift action was necessary to end the bloodshed in Syria.

"My concern is that we'll get into too long a process," he said. "Urgent action needs to be taken right now, and to put pressure on the participants to get together, to agree a transitional government that everyone in Syria can get behind."

Cameron, who also attended a meeting of a high-level panel on development goals he co-chairs, met U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban's press office said in a statement they discussed ways of "getting the warring parties in Syria to come to the proposed international conference with serious delegations and a real willingness to make compromises, especially on the issue of a transition."

The conference is intended to find a way to revive an agreement reached in Geneva in June 2012 that called for the creation of a transitional government "with full executive authority by mutual consent" - ambiguous wording which deliberately left Assad's future role unclear.

The United States, Britain, France, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have insisted that Assad and his family cannot participate in any transitional government. Russia, which along with China has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Assad's forces and rejected sanctions, has opposed that idea.

Some U.N. diplomats warn that any peace conference may be doomed because the gap between Russia's views and those of the United States and Europe remains massive.

IMPORTANT TO ENGAGE WITH OPPOSITION

Cameron was also asked about a French idea that the European Union ease an arms embargo for Syrian rebels but delay acting on the decision to intensify pressure on Damascus to negotiate an end to the civil war.

He did not respond directly to the idea but said it was important to engage with the opposition.

"If we don't engage with the opposition, then we shouldn't be surprised if extremist elements in that opposition grow," Cameron said. "That's not what we want and so we should be engaging. That's the debate that will take place in Europe."

Britain and France have delayed a Syrian request for Islamist al-Nusra Front to be designated by the United Nations as a terrorist group because they want the militant group to instead be listed as an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Nusra, one of the most effective forces fighting Assad, last month pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. The U.S. State Department designated it as a terrorist organization in December.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britains-cameron-dont-let-planning-syria-talks-bogged-204746489.html

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