Talking Peace: This week in global diplomatic negotiations

GlobalPost

The rage that has taken over the Ukrainian capital of Kiev in the last week of protests and police suppressions is showing no signs of subsiding, despite the president’s reported efforts to come together for peace talks and a visit from a European Union official. The opposition has made clear that it will not negotiate until the president has met its conditions.

Conflicts in the Central African Republic and Syria continue to burn as well, as the French president arrived in the CAR to try to contain the bloodshed while the United States has frozen “nonlethal aid” to Free Syrian Army fighters.

Here’s a closer look:

UKRAINE

Demonstrators have rejected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s call for round-table negotiations to end the chaos on the streets of Ukraine’s capital of Kiev.

"For the sake of achieving compromise I am calling on the opposition not to reject [talks], not to follow the path of confrontation and ultimatums," Yanukovych said in a statement on Wednesday.

But the opposition continued to emphasize that it would rule out any negotiations until the government body was dismissed, and riot police punished for “crushing” a Nov. 30 protest. The protestors, who are “demanding the resignation of the government over rejection of a European integration deal and police brutality” have “vowed to do everything to topple the president.”

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, visited Kiev on Tuesday and Wednesday to meet with the president, but was unable to broker a negotiation by Wednesday night.

The country’s main opposition party, Batkivshchyna—meaning Fatherland—is the party of imprisoned former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who on Wednesday warned protestors not to hold negotiations of any sort with Yanukovych.

"I am calling on all Ukrainians: rise up!" Tymoshenko said in a statement. "No talks with the gang."

Protestors have controlled the city streets since last weekend, when they set up camp, and are showing no signs of dispersing on there own, or by force.

"With what happened last night, Yanukovych closed off the path to any kind of compromise," opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko told a news conference, according to Al Jazeera.

Klitschko said demonstrators had previously "planned to have talks with Yanukovych,” however, they “understand that Yanukovych has no wish to talk to the people and only understands physical force, which he uses against the protesters."

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

French President François Hollande arrived in the Central African Republic's capital city of Bangui on Tuesday, following the first casualties for the French military in its intervention, which began last Thursday.

Two French paratroopers were killed on Monday, in a UN-backed mission to contain the violence raging in Bangui, where over 500 people have been killed over the past week.

Fighting between Seleka, a faction of predominantly Muslim fighters, and groups of Christian “vigilantes” has ravaged the capital, forcing civilians to seek refuge in the bush and on the city’s airport runways.

French forces have been going door to door since Monday, disarming gunmen across the city. In the meantime, the French government is pushing hard to “make its case” for cabinet members, reminding Parliament that the French mission is limited to a short, six-month intervention to stabilize the country.

SYRIA

The United States has suspended aid to northern Syria, after a new convergence of Islamist rebel groups overtook a warehouse where US aid had been delivered. The warehouse was previously occupied by a Western-backed group.

The stalled program supplied Free Syrian Army fighters with trucks, food and medical kits—the last delivery of which was received on Nov. 26, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The newly allied Islamist rebel group took over the warehouses and offices of the Supreme Military Council—a “rebel umbrella body” that coordinates aid deliveries—on Saturday in a town near Syria’s border with Turkey.

“Danger is necessary if we are to avoid absolute carnage,” Hollande said in the Republic.

Following the six-month intervention, according to French officials, a United Nations resolution demands that the mission be “handed over to a full-fledged UN force.”

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