Jazz Hub Montreux at Center of Syria Peace Drive
Better known for its jazz festival and as the inspiration for rock anthem "Smoke on the Water", Swiss town Montreux is now the hub of efforts to end the war in Syria.
As Syria's government, the country's divided opposition and the international community gathered for talks, the picturesque lakeside town was locked down.
Metal security barriers blocked off a zone around the conference venue in the upscale Petit Palais hotel, more used to hosting the big names of show-business.
A key section of the single-lane road running parallel to the lake is closed to traffic, while the pedestrian path is also off limits.
The Swiss government imposed a 46-kilometer (25 mile) airspace exclusion zone over Montreux, and authorized the deployment of 500 soldiers to bolster the police presence.
An explosives-hunting dog and its handler was patrolling on the street, while a police launch crisscrossed the waters of Lake Geneva.
Swiss police declined to reveal how many officers would be on duty during the talks, nor elaborate on operations.
But regional police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel underlined the challenges in a town of just 25,500 people, where rival delegations will aim to avoid each other except when actually at the talks.
"There are some delegations that want to be physically separated -- who cannot be in the same hotel, who do not want to be in the same hotel," he told Agence France Presse.
Keeping them apart would be a challenge as the delegations are staying in hotels within a short walk of each other, or mostly located on the two main parallel streets of central Montreux.
AFP reporters late Monday saw name-plates of four dozen countries set out in a meeting hall, before being ushered out by security staff.
The names included Iran, but in a sign of the diplomatic tensions surrounding the talks, it was later removed after the staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad was struck from the guest list, with the United Nations citing its refusal to back calls for a transition government made at a 2012 conference in Geneva.
Montreux residents were unfazed by the security operation, and said they felt honored that their town could play a part in ending Syria's brutal civil war.
"What's at stake in this meeting is so incredibly important. I just have to hope that they'll succeed, and that the name Montreux will be remembered for peace in Syria," sixty-something Francie Marechal told AFP.
Montreux was picked as venue for the opening session of the Syria talks owing to a dearth of hotels in the planned location, Geneva, caused by a luxury watch fair.
After a high-level diplomatic conference Wednesday drawing ministers from dozens of countries, and representatives of Syria's warring sides, the talks are scheduled to shift to Geneva on Friday.
Just meters (feet) from the conference hotel stands the statue of rock legend Freddy Mercury, whose group Queen recorded regularly in Montreux.
The media, meanwhile, packed into the congress center which every July hosts the Montreux Jazz Festival -- an iconic international event which has a repertoire that actually spans musical genres.
A short walk away sits the Montreux Casino, which caught fire in 1971. Rockers Deep Purple were in town at the time, and penned "Smoke on the Water".
"I'm pleased that we're going to be known as something more than entertainment experts," local councilor Christian Neukomm told AFP, noting that in 2010 Montreux also hosted a summit of leaders from French-speaking nations.
Neukomm said he hoped the Syria talks would be a stepping stone to peace, a sentiment echoed by Houria Zghami as she was pushing a baby buggy along the street.
"I really hope the talks will achieve their goals, and that Montreux can help that," Swiss-Moroccan Zghami told AFP.
Source: Agence France Presse
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