Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad casts his vote next to his wife Asma inside a polling station during parliamentary elections in Damascus, Syria.
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“To hold parliamentary elections now… given the current conditions in the country, we believe is at best premature and not representative of the Syrian people”, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a news briefing on Monday.
Thursday’s operation was launched a day after UN-brokered peace talks between the Syrian government and foreign-backed opposition resumed in Geneva.
It’s estimated that over 260,000 people have died as a result of the Syrian civil war.
Russian air power – combined with thousands of Shiite militiamen from countries such as Iran and Lebanon – has helped Assad’s forces make key gains against rebel fighters in recent months.
Aleppo, once the economic hub of Syria, has seen intense battles recently between the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the Syrian army in the southern countryside of the city. He says he raised this issue with the Syrian authorities he met in Damascus, urging them not to delay this operation. Across Damascus, government employees were delivered to the polls aboard packed buses.
“This will not happen, not now, nor tomorrow nor ever”, he said, in response to the opposition’s calls for Assad’s departure.
The Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee, which is negotiating in Geneva, has accused the Syrian government of over 2,000 breaches of the cease-fire in deadly attacks on opposition areas.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said after voting that “we in Syria always say that the Syrian people decide their destiny and today they are proving practically the accuracy of this saying”.
Russia, which is the main ally of Assad, welcomed the vote as it is necessary to avoid “a power vacuum” in the country until an agreement for a new constitution and election are made in the on-going peace talks.
The Russian-backed assault has sparked concern about the ceasefire, which has brought a significant drop in violence for the first time in the five-year conflict since it took effect on February 27.
Assad’s supporters, including Iran, say he should be able to run in a future presidential election.
She says “it is a much more delicate environment for de Mistura to convene political talks when you’re seeing regressions on humanitarian access and regressions on the cessation of hostilities”. “I am here to support the Syrian Arab Army”, said 18-year high school student Yazan Fahes, holding up his ink-stained finger.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition struck areas controlled by the Islamic State group near Syria’s border with Turkey, according to a Turkish news agency. “We live on this hope”. He says that “those who cause us harm will suffer many times more damage”.
The wider province of Kilis borders areas in Syria that are controlled by the Islamic State group, Syrian Kurdish militia or anti-government Syrian rebels.
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A government delegation is expected to arrive in the coming days for the “proximity talks” in which the two sides meet separately with de Mistura, but with no face-to-face meeting between delegations.
