Syria peace talks: Swiss setting adds surreal splendour to tense meeting

While thousands starve as the conflict rages on, the UN’s peace efforts have resumed in a lakeside palace

"Paintings of bare-breasted women must be a shock for Islamists" (Reuters)

Gathered in a small white marquee pitched on a sweeping lawn at the UN’s Palais des Nations in Geneva were a bunch of people who are rarely to be found sharing a tent. There was Major Hassan Ibrahim, a haggard Syrian rebel commander, up on stage to mark the fifth anniversary of the uprising in his country. Watching from the assembled crowd of journalists, the head of Damascus’s foremost propaganda agency made no effort to hide his smirks.

That these two figures from rival sides of the conflict were just a few metres apart was strange enough, but such surreal scenes are not the oddest aspect of the Syria peace talks that resumed this week. Two thousand miles away, tens of thousands of people are starving; here, in the genteel Swiss city, the parties at the UN headquarters dance around the arguments as groups of noisy teenagers go past on school tours.

Rather unfortunately for what is supposed to be the fulcrum of world peace, the austere neoclassical facade of the Palais des Nations, constructed in the early 1930s, has strong echoes of Nazi architecture.

The setting is lovely, with views over the glittering Lake Geneva and the snowcapped Swiss Alps, and the cafés are the only place in this ludicrously expensive city where a cappuccino costs less than £4. Otherwise there is little to commend it.

The palace is impossible to navigate, with signs leading you up and down and round and round until you are back where you started. Helpfully for visiting peacemakers from Syria, Yemen or Ukraine, the rooms are labelled with Roman numerals. God forbid you mistake Halle XIV for Salle XIV when searching for a meeting room: you’d end up accidentally at a cinema donated by the Republic of Kazakhstan. Perhaps the hope is that warlords and tyrants will be so disorientated by the time they reach the negotiating table that they will agree to anything.

The grand, glassy corridors are filled with strange artwork. You’ve got to wonder what Mohammed Alloush, chief opposition negotiator and a member of Saudi-backed Islamist rebel faction Army of Islam, makes of the 10ft oil paintings of bare-breasted African tribeswomen.

In the area where press conferences are held after each meeting, a giant canvas features a naked, bald man striking an action pose as if about to leap into the lake for a skinny dip. He bears an uncanny resemblance to Staffan de Mistura, the UN Syria envoy, who must stand just five metres from this likeness when he updates the world press on his efforts to end the world’s most deadly conflict.

The two delegations – from the Syrian government and the body anointed to act as the official opposition – stay in hotels a few miles from the UN, with a huge coterie of advisers and hangers-on. Finding somewhere to stay is often a problem. Mr de Mistura recently claimed he had delayed the latest round of talks because the 86th annual Geneva International Motor Show meant all the hotels were booked up.

The warring parties generally come into the UN on alternate days, so there is no danger of blood being spilled on the marble floors. But sparks do fly when journalists from opposition news channels quiz the government delegation and vice versa. Reporters from as far and wide as Brazil and Japan look on, bemused, usually trying and failing to catch the mutterings of a translator somewhere near the back.

Veterans of the Syria talks spoke of a new spirit of optimism this week compared with previous rounds. Discussions began against the backdrop of a two-week ceasefire and a Russian promise to withdraw troops. The opposition in particular was thrilled by Vladimir Putin’s announcement – one diplomat said he had to be “peeled off the ceiling” after hearing the news.

There were other encouraging moments. One day this week, I spotted a member of the opposition delegation laughing and joking in a corner of a UN café with a staffer from a staunchly pro-Assad news channel. Naively, I asked to take a picture. Both leapt to their feet and vigorously shook their heads. But it was nice to see them behaving like two normal people when the cameras had stopped rolling.

The fact remains, however, that the rival delegations do not refer to each other by name, let alone speak to each other. Bashar al-Jaafari, chief negotiator for the Syrian government, lashed out at his opposition counterpart on Wednesday for demanding the death of Bashar al-Assad. He described him as “terrorist” and said he would refuse to meet him until he shaved off his beard.

As Mr de Mistura himself is fond of saying, the key to solving this crisis lies in the hands of the world powers that sponsor rival sides. Until that happens, it is hard to resist the sense that everyone is just going through the motions – and roaming the endless corridors.