Diplomacy facing two huge challenges

Two sets of important negotiations are running in parallel. One — hopefully — to end a process, the other — hopefully — to prevent a civil war or something as catastrophic breaking out on the fringes of Europe.

The Syrian government delegation at the Geneva peace talks has, even at this very early stage, threatened to quit the summit if “serious” discussions do not begin by this morning. No one imagined that these talks would proceed without great difficulties, but early indications do not inspire the kind of optimism the Syrian people and their neighbours must crave.

The fact that two of the main actors in the process — America and Russia — are at loggerheads on a central, unavoidable issue does not augur well. America insists that the president, Bashar al-Assad, cannot have any role in a new, post-war administration; the Russians insist that no one else can, for the moment, lead a new government. Though these positions are diametrically opposed, they might be considered almost compatible compared to the venom, intractability, and undisguised hatred that divide the embattled Syrian delegations. Though it is always necessary to be optimistic in these situations, this is a challenging scenario and it is very hard to predict how long it might take or how it might conclude. Hopefully the process will bring, in the not too distant future, an end to the carnage endured by the Syrian population for far too long. That hope must be informed by the hard realities of conflict resolution, ones that we know only too well — after all, the Irish peace process can be measured in decades rather than months or years.