On
Syria,
P5 + Morocco
Meet with
Ministers in
Wings, Stakeouts
Leave Qs
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 8,
updated --
Four days
before
ministers
Lavrov, Hague,
Araud
and Hillary
Clinton
descend with
high
representatives
of China and
Gulf States on
the UN to
discuss the
Arab Spring,
the US Mission
hosted another
meeting on a
Syria draft
resolution,
for the third
day
in a row.
The
idea, a
Western
diplomat told
the Press, is
to keep the
negotiation
process
going hoping
to catch
lightning in a
bottle on
March 12. But
can they
get a
report-back by
then from
envoy Kofi
Annan's trip,
which only
starts March
10?
A
Gulf country
diplomat told
Inner City
Press that the
draft is
"already weak
and getting
weaker." There
are
moves to strip
out any
"further
measures," and
to switch the
sequence of
stopping
violence to
"in
conjunction."
Realistically,
it
seems unlikely
the Syrian
opposition
would ever
agree that
Assad's
forces had
pulled out.
So, the
argument goes,
a vacuum would
be
created and
the opposition
take over.
Inner
City Press
stumbled on
the P5 Plus
Morocco
meeting while
returning from
a
briefing at
the Mexican
Mission about
the G20, and a
stakeout of
North Korean
nuclear
negotiators in
the Millennium
Hotel in the
same
building.
The
informative
Mexican G20
delegation,
about whom we
will be
writing
more, has not
met with
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon. But
Ban was
spotted on the
afternoon of
March 7 going
into the
Millennium
Hotel.
Inquiring
minds want to
know: what
for? Watch
this site.
Update
of 5:40 pm --
the P5 and
Morocco had
not come out
of the US
Mission after
1 hour, 40
minutes. A UN
Special
Representative
who came by
told Inner
City Press
Syria had not
granted
access. A
delayed
stakeout on
women and
mediation was
to begin -
watch this
site.
, 
