Spotlight: Political transition still major sticking point as second week of Syria talks begin

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Monday that though the issue of political transition was raised with Syrian Government delegation head Bashar Jaafari in a meeting on Monday, progress has yet to be made on this sensitive topic.

"He said it was premature at the moment to talk about it. My message was premature means imminent as far as we are concerned," he explained.

The issue of political transition, a central tenet of UN Security Council resolution 2254 mandating a peace process roadmap, remains a major sticking point for both sides.

To date the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the umbrella group for Syrian opposition factions locked in bloody conflict with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has produced a substantive paper with points outlying their vision of governance and political transition.

Though the Syrian government delegation has yet to relay such an overview, it submitted a positional paper on the "basic elements for a political solution" on March 14 when talks kicked-off.

"It is important to start addressing their own understanding, it is clear that political transition is the mother of all issues, no one has questioned that, neither the Security Council, nor in Vienna, nor in Munich, nor in the International Syria Support Group," de Mistura highlighted.

The special envoy had said last week that a minimum common platform is expected to be reached by the time the first phase of the latest round of negotiations come to a close on March 24.

The diplomat also reported that the issue of terrorism, a recurring matter in talks seeking to broker a political end to a five-year conflict which has resulted in over 250,000 deaths, had been addressed.

This is particularly relevant as the Syrian Government considers that some of the rebel factions represented in the HNC are in fact terrorists, a stance which goes against current UN definitions on the matter.

"As far as the UN is concerned, those organizations which are listed by the Security Council as terrorists are terrorists, the rest is matter of personal opinion or Government opinion but not the UN opinion," he explained.

The UN mediator said that though the cessation of hostilities which came into effect in February is largely holding as is the movement on humanitarian aid, the two are unsustainable if no progress on the political debate is made.

"I've been reminding everyone that there is no plan B," iterated de Mistura, who also said that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Moscow this week could prove to be instrumental. Endit