The well-known recent gains by jihadists in Syria and Iraq, both in the military and the political spheres, have become an issue of serious concern for the Russian leadership. Unlike the West and many regional partners in the fight against terrorism, Russia continues to see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — possibly to an even greater extent than before — as an important ally in this struggle, and one who is almost single-handedly leading the fight. This is not the main point of contention, however. If those who refuse to cooperate with the government in Damascus on this basis believe that the jihadist wave will subside with Assad’s departure, in Moscow they are convinced that this will mean victory for Islamist radicals who will come to power in Damascus and then expand.
As is known, Moscow’s support for an inclusive national dialogue as the only possible way out of the Syrian crisis prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry to hold two inter-Syrian consultative meetings this year in the Russian capital with the participation of a number of opposition and civil society groups, as well as a delegation of the Syrian government, in which I acted as a moderator. These meetings appear to have played a positive role, if only because the conflicting parties listened to one another for a few days. They reaffirmed their commitment to exclusively political and peaceful means to resolve the crisis, to the principles of the Geneva Protocol dated June 30, 2012, and to the need for a Geneva III conference. They even managed to (almost) agree on a number of very sensitive issues and that in the next phase of consultations, they would begin discussing the most difficult problem, namely a transitional governance system for the country. Intransigence on a number of the most pressing challenges interrupted the dialogue and prevented progress, however.
