The United Nations Safety Council approved a decision Friday. outlining a process to complete the civil war in Syria, still with out settling one of the contentious issues: the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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The plan was also described as unrealistic by the Istanbul-based National Coalition, the main Syrian opposition grouping.
The resolution stipulates that the Security Council “support the ceasefire on all Syrian territory” and enter the stage of implementation as soon as the authority and the opposition take “the first steps towards the political transition process”. Ministers for France and Lithuania also said Assad “could not be seen as part of the solution to the crisis”.
Agreement on a resolution came after a meeting of the so-called International Syria Support Group at New York’s Palace Hotel.
“We have emphasised from the beginning that for this to work it has to be implemented by the men and women of Syria and can not be opposed from the outside”, Kerry said.
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. The Western and Arab states that support them have accepted he’ll stay for part of the transition, but want guarantees he’ll eventually leave office.
“There must be safeguards regarding the exit of Bashar al-Assad”, declared Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
“This is a risky logic, a unsafe approach”, RIA Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
It also endorsed the continued battle to defeat militants from the Islamic State group who have seized large swaths of both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
“As a outcome, our view has been that you can not bring peace to Syria, you can not get an end to the civil war unless you have a government that it is recognised as legitimate by a majority of that country”.
“The West and Russia’s position are coming closer together”, Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told AFP. “This marks a very important step”.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the Foreign Secretary acknowledged that the debate about Assad’s future had not shifted “at all”, despite the gathering pace of diplomatic efforts, which saw the ISSG agree in Vienna last month a six-month timetable for the establishment of a transitional government.
The UN resolution calls for the UN to present the council with options for monitoring a ceasefire within one month.
More than 250,000 people have died since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, and millions more have fled their homes.
Regime troops backed by Russian warplanes have sought to wrest back ground from Assad’s opponents in recent weeks.
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Kerry made clear that there were still differences on the future of Assad as well as on the question of which Syrian opposition groups will have a seat at the table in talks with the government.
