His opponents have always rejected any proposal for a transition unless he is removed.
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Despite the long-standing arguments over Assad’s future, the UN’s de Mistura suggested he was encouraged by the breakthrough in getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to the same table for the first time, and suggested it would help advance progress toward ending the Syrian conflict.
Participation of countries backing (Syrian President) Bashar Assad at this round of talks is like a miracle, he said.
“Talks are all about compromises and Iran is ready to make a compromise by accepting Assad remaining for six months”, the official told Reuters. It includes countries from Europe and the Middle East that are hosting a flood of Syrian refugees, and countries that are engaged militarily in the war.
After the eight-hour meeting, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said there was a few common agreement among those attending, including on a new Syrian constitution and the role of the United Nations in Syria. “Bashar al-Assad and his regime is the root of the terrorism in Syria”.
They say any fair vote is impossible in wartime conditions in which almost half of the country is displaced. “The sooner the better”, al-Jubeir said.
In addition to Assad’s fate, on which delegates said no breakthrough had been expected, sticking points have long included the question of which rebel groups should be considered terrorists and who should be involved in the political process.
Another key supporter of Assad, Russia, was present, along with numerous most influential Arab and European allies of the United States. He added that he “did not say that Assad has to go or that Assad has to stay”.
Kerry stressed the need to jumpstart the peace talks, saying the “the answer is not to be found in a military alliance with Assad, but in a broad diplomatic solution”. It linked to a video showing people tending to survivors in a chaotic scene of blackened rubble and fire.
Kerry, at the start of a tour of the five ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia, described Islamic State, as “a destroyer and it is threatening to take actions against America, Canada and Mexico, against countries all around the world”.
He urged the five main participants – the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – to abandon “national perspectives” for “global leadership”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov said Friday that they agreed Syria must emerge from civil war as unified secular state, and state institutions must remain intact. “It is very hard”.
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the additional assistance at the Manama Dialogue security conference in the Gulf island nation of Bahrain, where discussion of Syria dominated the gathering of mostly Western and Arab officials.
The war has entered an even more violent phase in the month since Russian Federation began airstrikes in support of Assad.
Government forces concentrated in Damascus and the centre and west of Syria are fighting the jihadists of Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, as well as less numerous so-called “moderate” rebel groups, who are strongest in the north and east. These groups are also battling each other.
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The decision to send a small special forces team marks an escalation in Washington’s efforts to defeat the Daesh (so-called IS) group, which has seized Syrian territory despite more than a year of US-led air strikes.
