September 16, 2015

Russia offered to have Assad step aside in 2012

located:	Russia, Syria
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

A senior negotiator has revealed that Russia proposed the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as part of a peace deal more than three years ago.

Since 2012 when the offer was made, more than 200,000 Syrians have been killed and the war has displaced millions of people, forcing the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time, told the Guardian this week that the West ignored Russia's offer.

Ahtisaari described the rejection of the an "opportunity lost". According to the Guardian, he "held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition."

However, Ahtisaari says that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal.

Instead, Assad remains in power to this day. Syrians continue to live in fear of both the Assad regime and ISIS, which came to prominence during the ongoing war in Syria.

Ahtisaari's revelation proves that the flow of Syrian refugees is something Europe brought upon itself and continues to inflict upon the Syrian people.

“We should have prevented this from happening because this is a self-made disaster, this flow of refugees to our countries in Europe,” Ahtisaari said. “I don’t see any other option but to take good care of these poor people … We are paying the bills we have caused ourselves.”

At the time of Ahtisaari’s visit to New York for the negotiations, the death toll from the Syrian conflict was estimated to be about 7,500. The UN believes that toll passed 220,000 at the beginning of this year.