Syrian rebels said Wednesday talks with regime ally Russia over the country's south had collapsed after Moscow threatened a renewed military offensive if they did not agree to tough surrender terms. Russia has been backing a two-week offensive by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces against rebels in the southern provinces of Daraa and Quneitra.
But it is simultaneously brokering talks with rebel towns for negotiated surrenders in a carrot-and-stick strategy that Russia and the regime have successfully used in the past.
More than 30 towns have already agreed to return to regime control and talks were focused on remaining rebel territory in Daraa's western countryside and the southern half of the city.
Rebels met with a Russian delegation on Wednesday afternoon to deliver their decision on Moscow's proposal for a regime takeover of the rest of the south.
About 90 minutes after the meeting was set to begin, the joint rebel command for the south announced the talks had "failed."
"Negotiations with the Russian enemy in Busra al-Sham have failed, after they insisted on the surrender of heavy weapons," the command said in an online statement. Their spokesman Ibrahim Jabbawi said the talks had not produced "any results" because Moscow had insisted rebels hand over their heavy-duty arms in one go.
"The session ended. No future meetings have been set," Jabbawi told AFP. A source close to the talks said rebels would be willing to hand over heavy weapons in multiple phases.
The meeting followed an hours-long session on Tuesday, in which rebels proposed the army's withdrawal from recaptured towns and safe passage to opposition territory elsewhere for fighters or civilians unwilling to live under regime control.
But Moscow had roundly rejected the terms, the source said, and responded with a counter-proposal. It told negotiators population transfers were not on the table in the south, although it had agreed to them in other areas like Eastern Ghouta and Aleppo. Russia insisted the army would return to its pre-2011 positions, and local police would take over towns in coordination with Russian military police. The source had said before Wednesday's meeting that the rebels were expected to give their "final answer". "Today will be the last round - either the rebels agree to these terms, or the military operations resume," the source said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said air strikes had stopped for several days to allow for negotiations. There were no immediate reports of a resumption of bombing or other hostilities after the collapse of the talks.
Moscow has used tough deadlines in the past with rebels but has sometimes extended them. That blend of military pressure and negotiated surrenders has expanded the regime's control of Daraa province to around 60 percent - double what it held when it began operations on June 19. The violence has displaced between 270,000 and 330,000 people, according to the UN, many south to the border with Jordan or west near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
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