Unanimous approval of a United Nations resolution endorsing a peace process for Syria is a “significant step” towards ending the country’s civil war, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said.
Advertisement
NWA inducted into the hall of greats
These five acts will be honored at the Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on April 8 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The rule is that acts or individuals are eligible 25 years after their first released recording.
The plan sets out a timetable for UN-supervised elections within 18 months, and stresses that the Syrian people will decide the future of their country.
Syria opposition wants transition without Assad: coordinator of negotiating body
This diplomatic balancing act aims to keep both Moscow and Riyadh on board as the group struggles to cobble together peace talks. United Nations } diplomats said a key stumbling block was how to address the issue of the transitional government.
“President Assad has lost the ability, the credibility, to be able to unite the country and provide the moral credibility to be able to govern it into the future”, Kerry said.
Trump dominates latest GOP debate – on social media
Ted Cruz publicized classified information about government phone tracking during the CNN Republican presidential debate. We’ve got to search all sorts of media outlets to see if anybody had reported that number independently”.
It places the political process to decide Mr. Assads future under United Nations auspices, making it far harder for Mr. Assad to control the vote, and specifically requires that all Syrians, including members of the diaspora, be allowed to participate in the vote.
Senior State Department officials told CNN that Kerry and Lavrov led negotiations Friday to fine-tune the text of the United Nations resolution.
The plan also calls for a ceasefire, but there is also disagreement over which armed groups should be designated as terrorists and consequently excluded from any talks or ceasefire.
In a rare show of worldwide unity over the conflict, Russian Federation backed the resolution endorsing the start of “urgent” formal negotiations between President Assad’s regime and moderate opposition groups early next month.
France is already demanding assurances that Assad will go, and even though Secretary of State John Kerry previously claimed the USA isn’t out for regime change, President Obama insisted that the U.S. would be at risk of more terror attacks if they didn’t force Assad from power.
In a dig at Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote in The Guardian on Friday it was “utterly absurd that those who have denied their own population the most rudimentary tenets of democracy… are now self-declared champions of democracy in Syria”.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said there was “some movement” in the talks on Syria, adding that one goal of the NY meetings was to clarify the timeline for peace talks between the government and opposition.
“The meeting between Putin and the Supreme Leader Khamenei was very successful and now Iran and Russian Federation share the same view on Assad”, the official said. Largely because of the Syrian war, the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide this year will surpass the record of 60 million, the United Nations refugee agency reported Friday.
Yet the name “Assad” is not mentioned in the draft resolution, much less any demand that he be removed from office, or, for that matter, that he be defended against foreign powers seeking to overthrow him.
“What you’ve got is a move that will end up with Assad going”, a senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
The deal on a draft resolution came on the sidelines of a meeting of the so-called International Syria Support Group at New York’s Palace Hotel. And who would lead the fight against the IS group and others, such as Al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front, left outside of the peace process?
During a break in the talks, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he had presented a document compiling the groups each country attending considered to be a “terrorist” organization.
Advertisement
– Welcomes Jordan’s effort to draw up a list of groups deemed to be terrorists.
