“For me it is absolutely clear that yesterday’s horrors in Paris should convince the last skeptics that not only can terrorism not be justified by anything, but our passivity also cannot be justified by anything in the fight against this evil”, he said.
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Governmental and “the whole spectrum of opposition forces” should gather together no later than January 1, 2016, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced at a press-conference in the Austrian capital, following Saturday’s talks.
Paris became the latest victim of the snowball effect of Syria’s conflict with a series of attacks Friday night that left nearly 130 people dead at the hands of gunmen who blamed their actions on French military action in Syria.
Anas, a Syrian journalist in Idlib province, said the Vienna talks were a joke.
“These kinds of attacks are the most vile, horrendous, outrageous, unacceptable acts on the planet”, said Kerry, after speaking with Lavrov and shortly before the main meeting convened at a luxurious Vienna hotel. He said the incidents would “stiffen” the resolve of world powers to fight back.
French Foreign Minister and veteran of many diplomatic initiatives Laurent Fabius declared on landing in Vienna that worldwide efforts would be on to contain terrorism. Despite their agreement on the need to defeat the Islamic State, which now occupies a broad swath of territory in both Syria and Iraq, participants hope to surmount differences that have prevented a political accord to end Syria’s separate civil war.
The State Department said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javid Zarif was expected to join talks on Saturday.
Syria’s ruling regime has generally referred to all rebel groups in the country as terrorists.
Foreign ministers from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others in the Middle East and Europe are here for a second round of meetings on Syria.
Police patrol near Notre Dame Cathedral following a series of deadly attacks in Paris, November 14, 2015.
The process to end Syria’s crisis is going to be long and violence might intensify “as a form of political pressure”, Sieda warned.
The foreign ministers met before a Group of 20 summit of world leaders starting on Sunday in the Turkish coastal resort of Antalya, where the war across the border in Syria is likely to dominate the discussion. He said Syrians should instead determine the president’s fate through a democratic process: He told reporters Saturday: “We did not come here to impose our collective will on the Syrian people, exactly the opposite…”
Hesitant, and sometimes openly pessimistic, views about the chance of progress in Vienna also were voiced by analysts. The article analyses the progress that has been made and the obstacles that still lie ahead.
“In response, we stressed unequivocally that only Assad himself can decide on his participation or non-participation in the elections and [that] it is only the people of Syria who can say whether they will vote for him or not”.
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Russian Federation has been calling for a political process to be launched in Syria for years, “but there were a lot of opponents to that”, Lavrov said, adding that he is satisfied an agreement has been finally reached.
