In a rare display of unity, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution Friday that calls for talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups as well as a ceasefire in the Arab nation’s 5-year-old civil war that has taken a heavy toll of life and triggered massive population displacements.
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The resolution, which was drafted in an earlier meeting involving 20 foreign ministers, including US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as well as their counterparts from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, leaves the principal points of division between these powers unresolved.
“President Assad in our judgment… has lost the ability, the credibility to be able to unite the country and to provide the moral credibility to be able to govern it”.
Previously, the council had united to demand the declaration and destruction of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
Kerry said that most ISSG members agreed that Assad would have to go, and many said so, notably France. “In January, we expect to be at the table and implement a full cease-fire”, he said.
Attending the meeting, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon said the fighting had gone on for too long.
The text does not include mention of Assad’s fate or which opposition groups will be included in peace talks.
The Foreign Secretary told the WSJ that Britain would use the NY talks to push for confidence-building measures to maintain the momentum of the process, such as commitments from all sides to facilitate humanitarian access and stop attacks on civilian populations and medical centres.
Ministers said they would meet again in January, and de Mistura is now tasked with pulling together a final negotiating team for the Syrian opposition.
It calls for the Syrian government and the opposition to begin a ceasefire and talks on a political transition with a target of early January 2016.
He also added that the Kingdom, since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, has always said that the comprehensive political solution is the only one for Syria, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. It also expresses the Council’s “support for free and fair elections”.
Still, it notes that the cease-fire “will not apply to offensive or defensive actions” against the Islamic State group and al-Nusra Front.
Asked about a definition of what constitutes a terrorist organization, Shoukry said that the Syria Support Group (SSG) has been seeking to make a list of terrorist organizations that should be excluded.
“It is inadmissable to divide terrorists into good ones and bad ones”, Lavrov told the Security Council.
“French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the talks between the Syrian government and opposition would only succeed if there were credible guarantees on the departure of Assad”. Nor is there any concrete plan for defeating the Islamic State which continues its quest to turn Syria and Iraq into a caliphate – a state run by ISIS’s version of Islamic law.
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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed.
