A senior US official and other delegates said a new round of Syria peace talks could be held as soon as next week.
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Assad was still living in London in January 1994 when he learned his older brother Basel had died suddenly in a vehicle crash.
Nevertheless, a commitment to a defined time limit for a transition would amount to an important new undertaking by Mr Assad’s closest ally, providing a potential basis for future diplomacy at a time when Mr Assad’s position has been strengthened by Russia’s decision to join the war on his side.
“I am sure we can create conditions for the Syrians to act wisely and find an agreement about their country’s future”, Lavrov added. Chief among them: The US and allies including Saudi Arabia softened calls for Assad’s quick removal from power.
As the Vienna talks were happening, Syrian opposition reported that a government missile barrage killed more than 40 in a Damascus suburb.
Its main friends in northern Syria are Kurdish forces, who captured a swathe of territory from Islamic State along the border with Turkey over the past year with the aid of USA air strikes.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister was quoted by Iranian journalists saying he “strongly rejects” claims that Tehran has agreed to back a proposal that requires the Syrian president to step down in six months. It has maintained that it is up to the Syrian people to decide who leads them. Initially, two small teams will evaluate the security situation on the ground and link up with local Syrian forces there, they said.
The “special Syria contact group” nations plan to meet again within the next two weeks, and the UN is working to convene the Syrian parties to talks. The point of the mission, Earnest said, is to “train, advise and assist” the local “moderate rebel” groups in their battle against the Islamic State.
Soon after he arrived at the talks in Vienna, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held meetings with Kerry and with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to Iran’s state-run media.
The Western officials said the United States and its partners supported the timetable as a first phase toward ending the four-and-a-half year civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and uprooted more than 11 million, leading to the growing terrorist threat of the Islamic State and sparking a refugee crisis throughout Europe.
“The participants together with the United Nations will explore modalities for, and implementation of, a nationwide ceasefire to be initiated on a date certain and in parallel with this renewed political process”, said a final joint communiqué on the results of Syria talks in Vienna.
All the foreign powers with interests at stake in Syria’s civil war gathered around the same table for the first time on Friday – including bitter rivals like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
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“I’m happy to be here in Moscow, and you know my conviction that the world needs Russia”, Sarkozy told reporters ahead of his hour-and-forty-five-minute-long closed door meeting with Putin at the Russian leader’s residence just outside the capital. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said earlier this week that Assad must quit his post “within a specific timeframe”. Syrians of all stripes will have to figure out how to stop the violence between the army and the many different militant groups and how to share power in a government comprised of such fierce enemies. Yet Russian Federation is carrying out daily airstrikes in support for Assad and Iran has deployed thousands of Hizbollah fighters and members of the Revolutionary Guard to prop up his regime.
