France and Britain will not take part in Syrian peace talks to be held in Russia on Tuesday, saying the talks had to be part of a U.N.-led process and urging Moscow to get the Syrian government to engage in meaningful negotiations.
Russia is hosting what it has called a Syrian Congress of National Dialogue in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday that it hopes will launch negotiations on drafting a new constitution for Syria after almost seven years of civil war.
Western powers and some Arab states believe the Sochi talks are an attempt by Russia to create a separate peace process that undermines the U.N. peace effort while laying the groundwork for a solution favorable to President Bashar Assad and allies Russia and Iran. Russia has invited the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – Britain, China, France and the United States – to the meeting, which the Syrian opposition has said it will boycott.
"All other initiatives, like the Sochi meeting organized by Russia, must support the U.N. process and be in that framework," a French foreign ministry spokesman said in a daily briefing.
"We take note of the Syrian opposition's decision not to go to Sochi. France will not participate in the work being carried out there," the spokesman said.
"The U.K. will not participate in the Sochi conference. Despite Russia's efforts the regime refuses to engage and has damaged confidence that Sochi can help the Geneva process," Britain's Syria envoy Martin Longden said on Twitter.
"We urge Russia to use its influence to persuade the regime to cease its destructive behavior."
France and Britain have backed the Syrian opposition during the seven-year conflict.
French officials said Russia only extended an invitation to attend on the sidelines of the Sochi conference and the foreign ministry declined to say whether any diplomats would attend. France's Syria envoy is not due to go, a diplomatic source said.
"If the talks failed in Vienna it's because the regime was not in the negotiations, it was there figuratively," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was quoted as saying by media during a trip to Japan.
"I think Sochi will not enable a breakthrough because an essential player will not be there due precisely to the regime's refusal to negotiate in Vienna."
Meanwhile, the Kremlin shrugged off a Syrian opposition decision to boycott a peace conference in Russia this week, saying on Monday the event would go ahead regardless and make a meaningful contribution to a political solution.
A spokesman for the Syrian opposition said on Saturday it would not attend the Russian event, dismissing the gathering as an attempt by Moscow to sideline the U.N.-backed peace process.
The decision was a setback for Moscow, which is keen to cast itself and President Vladimir Putin as an important Middle East peace broker after its military helped turn the tide of the conflict in Syria in Assad's favor.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a conference call with reporters: "The fact that some representatives of the processes currently taking place in Syria are not participating is unlikely to stop this congress from going ahead and is unlikely to seriously undermine the importance of the congress.
"Everyone recognizes that immediate breakthroughs in the Syrian peace process are unlikely to be possible. The only thing that is possible is patient, incremental, detailed work that can move us forward. In this sense, the Congress will be a very important, meaningful step on this road," he said.
Separately, Putin's Syria envoy Alexander Lavrentiev told the TASS news agency that Moscow regretted the opposition leadership's decision to stay away, but said he hoped "common sense" would prevail and they would change their minds.
He said some members of other opposition factions would attend and that "all strata" of Syrian society would be represented.
Lavrentiev told TASS he expected the conference to focus on selecting the members of a commission to draft a new Syrian constitution and for delegates to appeal for help to rebuild Syria.
Fresh elections and the country's name are also expected to be discussed.
The opposition says the event is a waste of time, however.
George Sabra, a prominent figure in the Syrian political opposition, said that the Sochi talks were "a project to serve Russian policy. The Russians are trying, through this congress, to find a place for themselves in the Syrian political space after putting their heavy hand on Syrian land."
Top Syrian Kurdish politician Hediye Yusuf, an architect of Kurdish-led autonomy plans for northern Syria, also predicted on social media that the event would yield little of import.
"Sochi will not bring results if the parties that are present on the ground are not there," wrote Yusuf.
Russia, together with Turkey and Iran, was already presiding over a separate track of peace talks in Kazakhstan distinct from U.N.-backed Geneva talks, and the Sochi event was meant to kick-start a peace process mired in disagreement.
Moscow says its own peacemaking efforts are meant to complement, not compete with U.N. attempts.
