US reiterates goal of Geneva II conference is to implement Geneva I communique

The US reiterated Tuesday that the goal of the Geneva II conference, scheduled to begin on January 22 in Switzerland, is to fully implement fully the Geneva I Communique, including "a transitional government based on mutual consent." State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters "nobody expects that everything will be resolved in the next 24 or 48 hours." She added "but we really do think this is an opportunity to make progress on implementing the different parts and fully implementing the Geneva I communique," which was issued on June 30 2012. "What we're focused on is having these two delegations sitting down at a table together, which we hope will be the beginning of leading to an end to the war in Syria," she affirmed. The conference is bringing together representatives from both the Syrian government and the Syrian political opposition for the first time since the conflict began almost three years ago. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who described the conference as "landmark, " said it would be "a mission of hope," and that it was "unforgivable not to seize this opportunity" to end the war. According to many officials, the goal of Geneva II is to achieve an agreement between the Syrian government and the opposition for the full implementation of the Geneva Communique. Frederic Hof, a former State Department adviser on Syria, was quoted in the weekly publication of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East as saying that the purpose of the conference is to negotiate "the creation of a transitional governing body." He added that "the whole purpose of the conference is a negotiated agreement on political transition, the creation of a transitional governing body. Absent that, there is no reason to have this conference." For her part, State Department Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki reiterated that "as we've stated many times, the purpose of the conference is the full implementation of the Geneva communique, including the establishment by mutual consent of a transitional governing body with full executive authorities. "We are hopeful that all parties can now return to focus on the task at hand, which is bringing an end to the suffering of the Syrian people and beginning a process toward a long overdue political transition," she remarked in a statement yesterday. A senior state department official stressed that "if this conference provides an impetus to finding a way forward whereby Syrians understand that the issue is not the entire state of Syria, the issue is a ruling family and the change of some officials, but the safeguarding of the remaining institutions of the state so that we don't have a repeat of the Iraq scenario. "I don't think anybody, whether in the political opposition or the armed opposition, or frankly within large segments of the regime are happy with the situation - I think even people in the regime acknowledge that it's tragic," the official said in a background briefing today. The official added that the conference "is an occasion for the opposition to present a vision and to present a plan for how to get out of it. And I think there will be a huge amount of media attention given to them and just by necessity because there are going to be so many media there." The official stressed that "it will be an unprecedented opportunity for them to actually show Syrians inside Syria and even inside the regime that the problem is not the state, the problem is not Syrians who have been backing Assad; the problem is the family and the immediate circle around Assad, and that they - there is a way to isolate those people and move forward as a country." "I don't want to pretend that that's easy, and I don't want to pretend that it's simple; it's not. It's going to be a long, hard process, a grinding process, I would say," the official remarked. Harf stressed that the US is "focused on getting to work; bringing, for the first time since the conflict began, both parties to the table and seeing if we can make progress on implementing the Geneva Communique." She emphasized "it is significant that we'll have the opposition and the regime sitting down at the table together I think for the first time since the conflict started. I don't want to prejudge the outcome of those discussions or what might come from this. We do know that it's going to be very challenging. "We have been committed to ensuring that Bashar Al-Assad cannot go on leading his country. That is exactly why we are so engaged in the Geneva II process. It's complicated," she remarked. She stressed that "it's difficult; if it were easy, it would have been done months or years ago. And one of the things that makes this even more challenging and even more imperative is it appears there is no level low enough, right, for Assad, in terms how he treats his own people." She shed light on the "systematic violations, of Syrians' human rights; terrible, awful conditions in the prisons," saying "this is exactly why we are committed to doing everything to ending this bloodshed." She added "this isn't for the United States to impose. This is a process led by the UN that we are a key part of, but certainly not the ones driving the process to help get a political transition in place here. And that's exactly what they're going to be focused on over the next few days in Montreux and Geneva." US Secretary of State John Kerry affirmed last week "the bottom line is we are going to Geneva to implement Geneva I. And if Assad doesn't do that, he will invite greater response in various ways from various people over a period of time." He stressed "the Geneva peace conference is not the end but rather the beginning, the launch of a process, a process that is the best opportunity for the opposition to achieve the goals of the Syrian people and the revolution and a political solution for this terrible conflict that has taken too many lives. "The Syrian people need to be able to determine the future of their country. Their voice must be heard. And any names put forward for leadership of Syria's transition must be agreed to by both the opposition and the regime. That is the very definition of mutual consent," the US top diplomat remarked. Harf noted that "obviously there are different steps that the (Syrian) regime could take to show that they're interested in moving forward and making progress on the Geneva Communique." She affirmed "obviously we're committed to supporting the opposition, working with them, and working with our international partners to get a political transition."