Kerry said once an agreement on a transitional government is reached, a new constitution would be drafted within six months and free and fair elections would be held within 18 months.
Advertisement
These countries agreed that the United Nations would lead consultations to determine the modalities of the ceasefire, which will not involve operations against the Islamic State, Al-Nusra Front and other groups yet to be determined. Under the terms, the sponsoring countries of each group covered by the cease fire would be responsible for making sure that group upholds it. He said those two countries, Assad’s strongest backers, are sticking with him only to wring out concessions that benefit them during the negotiations.
The crux issue of the role of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad remained unsolved.
“The gap has been enormous between those of us who believe Assad should go immediately and those like President Putin who have been supporting him and continue to support him”.
For their part, members of the visiting delegation underlined that the terrorist attacks in France yesterday proved that there is no state which would be safe from terrorism, expressing belief in the importance of unifying efforts of regional and worldwide sides to combat it and stop this phenomenon which poses threat to the peoples of the region and world.
He added, however that, “we still differ on what happens to [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad”.
At the same time, Kerry said the war “can’t end as long as Bashar Assad is there. That’s the perception of the people waging the war”. The Islamic State has spread in Iraq, he said, because Assad sent the country spiraling into chaos by attacking legitimate protesters to his rule. “ISIS is your enemy”.
More than 250 000 people have been killed in the Syrian war. It has left 11 million uprooted from their homes, while allowing Islamic State militants to carve out significant parts of Syria and Iraq for their would-be caliphate. Europe and Syria’s neighbours, meanwhile, are struggling to cope with the worst migrant crisis since WWII.
“One of the objectives of the Vienna meeting is to see concretely how we can strengthen the global coordination in the fight against Daesh”, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Vienna before the main meeting started.
At a joint press conference of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, the Russian minister said that what happened in Paris, the series of the terrorist attacks, should convince everyone that terrorism can not be justified by anything.
“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.
“But it is really important that the worldwide community comes together at this particular point to deal with Isil”.
Advertisement
Russian Federation snubbed Australia’s involvement in talks towards a peaceful political solution in Syria.
