In his analysis, published in the foreign affairs journal New Eastern Outlook, Orlov took a look back at the week's events, recalling the opposition High Negotiations Committee's failure to show up for its meeting with Syrian government officials at the Palais de Nations. With this move, he wrote, the talks were effectively derailed, "even if formally they were only delayed for three weeks."
With the High Negotiations Committee and the State Department dropping hints that Russian airstrikes and Syrian army offensives were to blame for disrupting the talks, Orlov suggested that it seems that "lately, the statements coming out of the White House spokesman regarding the Syrian crisis lack any elementary logic." At the same time, "Washington's desperate desire to put a halt to Russia's operation in Syria is more obvious today than it has ever been."
The reality, the analyst suggests, is that "from the beginning, it has been clear that the main purpose of the negotiations, as far as Washington is concerned, has been to announce a ceasefire, giving terrorists the time and opportunity to regroup, resupply their weapons on Saudi and Qatari money through deliveries made by Turkey, and then to resume clashes with a renewed force."
"We are detecting more and more signs of Turkish armed forces being engaged in covert preparations for direct military action in Syria," the spokesman had said, adding that the Russian Defense Ministry had already provided the international community with irrefutable evidence of Turkish self-propelled artillery shelling Syrian settlements in northern Latakia province.
Russian MoD registers a growing number of signs of hidden preparation of the Turkish Armed Forces for active actions on territory of #SYRIA
— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) 4 февраля 2016
But it was the Syrian Army's breakthrough at the strategic cities of Nubl and Zahraa in Aleppo province, Orlov explains, which caused most of the "hysteria among the Syrian opposition" in Geneva, with the army managing to cut off the supply route from Turkey to the rebel-held city of Aleppo, the country's largest city, which has now been encircled.
"According to Bashar Jaafari, it was after this offensive that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, supporting the most implacable opposition forces, ordered the High Negotiations Committee delegation to leave Geneva. After all, these 'opposition leaders' arrived in Geneva on a special plane provided by the Saudi royal family, while those who came to represent the legitimate Syrian government had to use the assistance of [UN Syria mediator] Staffan de Mistura, with huge difficulties and numerous transfers, spending more than 24 hours on the trip."
"As for the so-called opposition, in accordance with Washington and Riyadh's demands, it is doing its best to derail the talks, putting forward a priori unacceptable demands, like the discussion of 'Syria after Assad'."
"After all," the analyst notes, "it's obvious to everyone that the claims about Russia's evildoing in Syria are only aimed at disrupting the negotiations process, or at least provide it with an anti-Russian flare, while Washington carries on its policy supporting terrorists," and calling on its allies to do the same.
"In this situation, it's time to move from empty diplomatic games within the confines of 'peace talks' and toward new military operations in Syria to purge it of Islamist terrorists. The Syrian Army and people's militias have achieved a great deal on the battlefield over the last three weeks. It's clear that by carrying on the offensive one can achieve more than by sitting in Geneva engaged in empty talks," Orlov concludes.
