An international summit to address the conflict in Syria, called Geneva Two, is scheduled to begin on Jan. 22 in Montreux, Switzerland. (Hotels in Geneva were fully booked by attendees to a watch convention.) The United Nations this week began sending out invitations, and Ayman Abdel Nour, a dissident Syrian exile who was once a friend of President Bashar al-Assad’s, posted one Thursday on his popular Arabic-language blog, All4Syria.
The letter lays out the principles governing the conference and details the ground rules of the meeting. Neither have changed much since the first Geneva conference on Syria in June 2012, a reminder of how challenging the issues are and how most of them have only become more intractable with time. Indeed, Syria analysts say talks could go on for years. The biggest accomplishment for now may be getting the parties in the same room.
We dissect the U.N. invite here:
