The US on Wednesday blamed Syria’s government for the “disappointing” failure of talks this month aimed at bringing peace to the country after more than a decade of war.
Richard Mills, the deputy US envoy to the UN, expressed “frustration” with the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad over the collapse of reform talks in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Syrian Constitutional Committee, comprising government, opposition and civil society members, made scant progress last week and no date was set for the next meeting.
“This most recent round, which started with such promise, ended up as one more missed opportunity by the regime to show its sincere commitment to the committee's work,” Mr Mills said in New York.
He urged panellists to “change their unproductive behaviour” and negotiate in “good faith”, saying Washington would not restore diplomatic ties with Damascus without progress on a reform package.
“The US government will neither normalise relations with the Assad regime nor will we support efforts to do so until we see irreversible progress towards a political solution,” Mr Mills told the UN Security Council.
Envoys to the sixth round of talks did not agree on draft texts about reforming the war-torn country’s government.
Geir Pedersen, the UN peace envoy who shepherds the constitutional committee, called it a “disappointment”.
He told the 15-nation UN council he hoped to arrange dates for a seventh round of talks.
“Progress on the constitution committee could, if done the right way, help to build some trust and confidence,” said Mr Pedersen.
“But let me stress that this requires real determination and the political will to try to get some common ground.”
The talks followed a nine-month gap from the previous meeting. Past rounds made little progress on devising a new constitution.
The war’s front lines are largely unchanging and Mr Al Assad’s forces, with foreign support, have recaptured most of the country, giving him little reason to negotiate with opponents.
Syria’s war has killed as many as 450,000 and displaced half the country’s prewar 23 million people, including some five million refugees mostly in neighbouring countries.
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- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
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PULITZER PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
JOURNALISM
Public Service
Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Local Reporting
Staff of The Baltimore Sun
National Reporting
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica
and
Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times
International Reporting
Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing
Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Commentary
Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Criticism
Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing
Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press
Editorial Cartooning
Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Breaking News Photography
Photography Staff of Reuters
Feature Photography
Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press
Audio Reporting
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News for “The Out Crowd”
LETTERS AND DRAMA
Fiction
"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Drama
"A Strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson
History
"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel (Oxford University Press)
Biography
"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Poetry
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction
"The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care" by Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
and
"The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Music
"The Central Park Five" by Anthony Davis, premiered by Long Beach Opera on June 15, 2019
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Ida B. Wells
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Rock in a Hard Place: Music and Mayhem in the Middle East
Orlando Crowcroft
Zed Books
