Now Kweryris could be used by Russian planes in their fight against rebels fighting the regime of president Bashar al-Assad. He added that parliamentary elections are an internal Syrian affair and that it was still too early to hold them.
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The plans include a constitutional reform process in Syria, lasting 18 months, to be followed by presidential elections.
The text does not rule out Assad’s participation in early presidential elections, something his enemies say is impossible if there is to be peace.
“Not only because the devil is in the details, but because we are talking about regional powers that don’t see eye to eye, and you are talking about multiple factions that are going to fight until the end”, he said. Assad was elected to a new seven-year term in 2014 elections that the opposition dismissed as a sham because of the impact of the civil war.
Russian Federation launched airstrikes in Syria in support of Assad at the end of September but at least 22 people were since killed in a brutal attack on the regime’s coastal stronghold of Latakia.
“We will not accept that the regime stays even for 24 hours”.
“The Syrian people have never accepted the dictatorship of Assad and they will not accept that it is reintroduced or reformulated in another way”, said Monzer Akbik, according to Reuters.
The Russian document, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, makes no mention of Assad stepping down during the transition – a key opposition demand.
Robert Ford, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and a former USA ambassador to Syria, warned that a new constitution and new elections can only be held after serious governance changes are made.
Meanwhile, France said on Tuesday it had stepped up its bombing campaign against ISIS’ oil infrastructure with new raids in eastern Syria as part of its third wave of strikes under a US-led air campaign.
“The eight-point plan itself is not central to the discussions in Vienna but Russian Federation is”, Rycroft said.
A summit communique expressed support for the Geneva 1 communique, a 2012 document setting out guidelines for Syria’s path to peace including a transitional governing authority.
The second round on Saturday again excludes the Syrians, and it is not clear yet whether the Russian proposal has been coordinated with the Syrian government.
Iran is the main regional ally of Syria and provides Assad with financial and military aid, including military advisers on the ground.
The proposals are being circulated among world powers at the United Nations in NY ahead of a gathering in Vienna this weekend to thrash out terms for peace talks.
“Assad’s atrocities – barrel bombs, gravity bombs, artillery and missiles directed against civilian residential neighborhoods – do three things: kill and stampede lots of people; create recruits for ISIS; and prevent any possibility of dialogue and negotiation between Syrians”.
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“The political future of Dr. Bashar Assad should only be decided by the Syrian people in democratic elections”, said Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, speaking in Beirut on Wednesday following a visit to Moscow.
