Syria talks can bring down violence in ME: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed William Jones, with the Executive Intelligence Review from Leesburg, on the participation of Saudi-backed anti-Syrian government group dubbed the High Negotiations Committee in the Syria Peace Talks in Geneva.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: With still not even sure if this High Negotiations Committee will attend, how much hope can you have of any success here?

Jones: Well, we hope that with that they can at least get together. I don’t think there will be any results any time soon but to the extent that the talks are ongoing, this has the result of bringing down the violence in the region.

The difficulties of course are that the different positions of the different parties, but in particular the Saudi reticence, I don’t think, they were very happy with the talks to begin with. I think, they would like to continue supporting military action, because they’ve targeted Assad and they want policy of regime change.

The US has basically been backing that but the efforts of Secretary Kerry and maybe the pressure coming from the State Department on this issue has got them to agree these talks, but there are still a lot of foot-dragging going on.

And we hope at least that something can be done that they can meet today with or without all the groups, I think, it’s important that the talks start to get going now.

Press TV: Obviously, Mr. Jones, for these many years the Syria crisis has been going on. Now we’re seeing the repercussions for Europe through the refugee crisis of course. Do you think that there is a gap almost now between Europe and the US, where Europe is feeling obviously now that’s the blowback from its policies towards Syria?

Jones: Oh, absolutely. I think the refugee crisis has made the Middle East situation, which Europe to a large extent could set back and watch as the US conducts its various wars in the region, but now that’s become an existential threat for them as well.

And therefore, in terms of their own national interest they would warn and they’re actively moving to try and create some kind of a peaceful settlement with regard to the war in the Middle East, which is the cause of the millions potentially maybe at some point of billion people coming into Europe which they cannot support.

And therefore, even those who had been reticent dealing with these refugee issue like Mr. Schaeuble in Germany, are calling for a Middle East Marshal Plan in order to deal with this.

This, I think, is where the Europeans are gathering around their support for an economic plan to end the crisis in the region by creating economic development. And the US is certainly not there yet. So, there’s a great difference between the two in that respect.

Press TV: And obviously, Mr. Jones, that the huge factors here is those who back many of these foreign militants such as of course namely the Saudis and even the Qataris and the Turks maybe. Will the other countries around the table be able to influence them to stop what they’re doing?

Jones: Well, the big influence really will come from the United States and that means they’ve got to start to turn the screws on our Saudi allies to a much larger extent and they’ve been willing to do.

The Saudi policy of spreading Wahhabism in the region is really the basis of the growth of this terrorism. And the United States has really never confronted the Saudis on that issue in spite of the fact of 9/11 which involved a lot of Saudi people, Saudi citizens or subjects who were influenced by this Wahhabism.

And I think that’s really the force that has to do the influencing is the United States and they’ve got to put a lot more pressure on the Saudis to get them to play ball in this respect.

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