2. Confidence Building Measures

All parties at the negotiations should be equipped with the skills to participate in negotiations effectively so that they may reach a sustainable and peaceful solution.
It is important to ensure that parties know and can clarify each other’s views. This is in order to minimize miscommunication and misunderstanding. CSOs can facilitate trust building and agreement by providing information and/or new thinking that places an issue in a more neutral context and enables greater understanding.
• The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria must be respected;
• Commit to resolving conflict through peaceful dialogue and negotiation alone. The negotiations and the transitional phase must be conducted without violence in a climate of safety, stability and calm for all;
• Engage in the process in good faith with commitment to find a credible solution. Respect all parties at the negotiating table and engage genuinely with the Special Envoy and those facilitating and assisting the process;
• Agree principles and guidelines for the negotiations and the transitional phase that will deliver a Syrian-led transition with clear steps and timetable to arrive at a perspective for the future that can be shared by all in Syria;
• Stop the use of heavy weapons, establish a ceasefire and agree to cooperate with the Transitional Governing Body (TGB) to make the ceasefire permanent;
• Apply humanitarian criteria and provide humanitarian access for the UN and CSOs to deliver humanitarian relief and support across the whole country, overseen by the UN/international guarantors;
• Release arbitrarily detained persons;
• Create conducive conditions for the return of refugees and meet the needs of internally displaced people, especially the most vulnerable and those in besieged areas;
• Identify mutual points on which there can be common agreement such as (but not confined to) reconstruction, reparation, opposing extremists; and
• Use and promote the use of neutral facilitators and mediators, including CSOs in these roles where appropriate, to mediate dialogues and/or resolve conflict at various levels throughout Syria.

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