Partiticipation of terrorists to derail Syria talks: Commentator

Press TV has interviewed Daniel Patrick Welch, a political commentator in Boston, to discuss the planned participation of terrorist groups fighting the Syrian government in the peace talks.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Known terrorist groups are to take part in negotiations. How will that affect the talks?

Welch: This as always is going to be the sticking point. It was when the agreement was first signed and it was clearly the only thing left in the way. The thing is that this is the whole ball of wax. These guys, meaning Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, the rest of [Persian] Gulf monarchies, have been funding and arming foreign terrorist groups to try to bring down the Syrian government and they have always tried to ‘say no, no, no, they are really Syrians opposing the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad’ and they have been [proved] wrong time and time and time again and they are trying to do now through diplomatic means what they failed to do on the battlefield especially after the Russian intervention at the request of the Syrian government.

Press TV: So then in a sense, are these setting up the negotiations for failure?

Welch: Yes. Really I think that these negotiations are already set up for failure. I think that the idea that you can talk out this thing where your killers are sitting around a table, when they have been paid to knock you off, was never a big deal. I think that what drives the whole process right now is the progress on the ground, on the battlefield, a military solution driving the diplomatic solution, and if that continues to have success then the end of the regime change operation through death squad proxies can be insane.

Press TV: Certainly that means that they are okay with the Syria crisis continuing but certainly that has ramifications for Europe be it the refugee crisis or otherwise.

Welch: Sure. Yes. I mean this is the one thing pressing the Europeans, separating the Europeans from the Americans in all of this, is that they have gone along with these wars for this whole time, now that those wars all through North Africa and Middle East have produced millions of refugees and economic dislocated migrants, and they are trying to then demonize them and point out the crimes they committed in an old kind of racist trope that has been trotted out for hundreds of years, and that will continue unless they can solve this problem in Syria and it is a catch-22 for them. They have to drop their commitment to overthrow the Syrian government and they are too stuck to the Americans at the moment.  

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk