Focus of Syria Talks Shifts to Prisoner Releases

With a fragile ceasefire continuing to hold in Syria, a top U.N. diplomat said Thursday that negotiations will pivot toward securing the release of the tens of thousands of detainees held by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels fighting to oust him.

“Many families — on both sides actually — are suffering,” Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.’s special envoy to Syria, said at a press conference in Geneva. He said diplomats were trying to establish a “special mechanism” between the warring parties to formalize the process of releasing prisoners. The Syrian opposition claims it has a list of 150,000 names of individuals currently detained by the regime.

The announcement came after the conclusion of the first round of indirect negotiations in Geneva between officials from Assad’s regime and representatives of the Syrian opposition. The results of the talks were modest — de Mistura cobbled together a 12-point paper of common principles reaffirming the two sides’ rejection of terrorism, the preservation of Syria’s “sovereignty,” and a democratic non-sectarian Syrian state, among other fairly uncontroversial issues. The paper, obtained by Foreign Policy, makes abundantly clear that the two sides have not agreed on how to bring about Assad’s departure as part of the transition to a new government — arguably the most contested issue of the five-year war.

Still, the renewed focus on detainees is a major win for the Syrian opposition and its main delegation, the High Negotiations Committee, which had been pushing for negotiators, including Secretary of State John Kerry, to prioritize the issue.

“This should be on the table when Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov meet,” HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet told FP, referring to Kerry’s meetings in Moscow on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A senior U.S. official said the Obama administration views detainee releases as priority and sees it as a key tool in keeping the Syrian opposition invested in the talks.

“It’s the next type of confidence-building measure that could really help keep the momentum up,” said the senior administration official. “It’s something we’re talking a lot about.”

But it remains unclear if the Syrian regime will agree to a release. “The Russians understand how important that is [to the United States and the opposition] and hopefully are communicating that to the regime,” the official said.

Meslet said he maintains a list of names of 150,000 detainees held by the Syrian government that he wants released, beginning with women and children. The figure could not be independently verified. “We received a promise from Mr. Kerry that they will work very hard on this because no one wants to see women and children in jail for no reason,” he said.

Meslet says that many of the prisoners held by Assad were detained after participating in peaceful protests against the Assad regime. He’s mindful that the HNC is unlikely to secure the immediate release of even half the names on his list, but said every release counts. “If our people see even 150 women and children released, this will be a relief for us,” he said. “Any number means something to our people because in many cases, prison is torture.”

It’s unclear how many pro-Assad troops have been detained by the opposition because of the difficulties of obtaining accurate figures for missing or imprisoned individuals. An Amnesty International report released in November found that at least 65,116 individuals have been “forcibly disappeared” by the Assad regime since the mass demonstrations of 2011 that morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 250,000.

During his press conference in Geneva, de Mistura said the next round of talks should begin around April 9 and noted that he was heartened by the fact that “we have been able to overcome these two weeks without any walkouts or drama, and potentially a paper that has not been refused by either side.”

He added that the cessation of hostilities between the regime and rebels, which began almost a month ago, has made it easier to deliver humanitarian aid to besieged cities.

“We have calculated perhaps 3,000 people … are alive today since the beginning of the cessation of hostilities,” he said. “They would not be, based on the statistics we used to be, sadly, facing every day.”

Meanwhile, in Moscow, Kerry delivered remarks ahead of meetings with Russian officials, and praised Russia’s “very critical decision with respect to the drawdown of your forces in Syria” earlier this month. Putin teased Kerry for carrying his own suitcase while getting off the plane, suggesting that it could be a sign of American decline.

“On the one hand, it’s quite a democratic way of conduct, but on the other hand, I thought probably the situation in the United States is not that good and there is no one to assist the secretary of state in carrying his luggage,” Putin said. The comments were somewhat amusing given that low oil prices and economic sanctions have been crushing Russia’s own economy.

Putin said that he assumed there was something in Kerry’s briefcase that Kerry “couldn’t trust anyone else with.”

“Probably you brought some money with you to haggle on key matters,” Putin continued.

In a vague rejoinder, Kerry said, “When we have a private moment, I’ll show you what’s in my briefcase,” he said, adding that “I think  you’ll be surprised — pleasantly.” He didn’t offer any details.

The diplomatic progress comes amid a Syrian government push to retake the ancient town of Palmyra, which the Islamic State seized last year. The offensive began last month with the help of Russian air strikes and seeks to reclaim a strategically important area between the contested town of Deir al-Zour and Damascus. It also comes as the Iraqi government began an operation that could pave the way for a wider assault on the northern Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul.

FP reporters Colum Lynch and Dan De Luce contributed to this report.