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Brahimi: Syrian issues to take long time to resolve

MOSCOW, February 13, 23:36 /ITAR-TASS/. The issues of the fight against terrorism and the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria will take a long time to resolve, the joint United Nations and Arab League envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Thursday.

Brahimi told a news briefing that the agenda of the intra-Syrian talks currently ongoing in Geneva has not been formed yet.

Whether these issues will be discussed in parallel or not, but these problems will not be resolved this or next week, he said.

The parties to the Syrian conflict resumed talks on February 10, starting the second round of the Geneva-2 international peace conference on Syria, whose first round ended January 31 with no substantive results.

Geneva-2, organized by Russia and the United States, seeks to negotiate a solution to the Syrian crisis which has claimed over 100,000 lives and displaced millions since its start in 2011.

The position of the Syrian government delegation is that the fight against terrorism should be discussed at the current talks first and a transitional governing body later. But the Syrian opposition apparently believes the transitional government issue, mentioned in the Geneva Communique, should top the discussion agenda.

The Geneva Communique was adopted on June 30, 2012 at a conference of an “action group” on Syria in Geneva. That conference is now commonly referred to as “Geneva-1.” Geneva-2 is its logical continuation.