Ex-US envoy offers fresh Syria recipe

ISTANBUL

The only viable way forward in the Syrian crisis is to find a negotiated solution and there is a need to find the representatives of the “moderate middle” among both the opposition and the regime, a former U.S. diplomat has suggested.

Ryan Crocker, former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, said Feb. 22 that U.S. military intervention in Syria was “out of question,” adding that arming the opposition would be “dangerously foolish ... We don’t know who they [the opposition] are or what their agenda is.” The only viable way to end the crisis is a negotiated solution, he said, adding that there was a need to identify elements in the Syrian establishment “to sit at the negotiation table.” Crocker added that Turkey could help with advice about finding these elements, also adding that the U.S. had “no interest at all” in seeing the borders of the Middle East changed.