U.N. Security Council members have reached agreement on a resolution they plan to adopt on Friday endorsing the way forward on a possible end to Syria’s civil war, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said.
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However, disagreements remain over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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The resolution has been described as a rare gesture of unity on the Syria peace process by a council often deeply divided on the crisis, which is deep into its fifth year with well over 300,000 killed.
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“This council is sending a clear message to all concerned that the time is now to stop the killing in Syria and to lay the groundwork for a government that the long-suffering people of that battered land can support”, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said of the initiative.
Nevertheless, Kerry – who has “agreed to disagree” with Moscow on Assad’s fate – said the vote would act as a springboard for forging ahead with peace talks.
The resolution has requested UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to convene representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition for peace talks “on an urgent basis”, and also to determine the requirements and modalities of a ceasefire, which are also stated in Geneva and Vienna documents.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius meanwhile demanded that talks on Syria’s future were held under the condition that Assad leave power.
The resulting agreement “gives the Syrian people a real choice, not between Assad and Daesh, but between war and peace”, Kerry said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State extremists.
“Then we can make headway with a cease-fire and political transition”, Ghadbian said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, stated the resolution adopted by the United Nations council underscored that the political transition needed to be led by Syrians, which is a “clear response to attempts to impose a solution from the outside… on any issues, including those regarding its president”.
Diplomats said that at previous rounds of Syria talks in Vienna, Zarif and his Saudi counterpart engaged in several heated exchanges about Syria. Kerry did add that the United States still did not believe Assad “has the ability to be able to lead the future Syria”, and soon after his remarks, the State Department said the US policy that Assad should go remained unchanged.
Earlier this week diplomats said some progress had been made on the most hard sticking point in the talks: Assad’s fate.
It calls for “credible, inclusive and nonsectarian governance” within six months and “free and fair elections, pursuant to the new constitution”, within 18 months. That would allow Russian Federation to continue bombing the groups, along with the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, under terms of a cease-fire.
Jordan’s foreign minister presented a draft list of “terrorist” groups that the ISSG nations will agree to exclude from the talks. It also endorsed the continued battle to defeat Islamic State militants who have seized large swaths of both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
Najib Ghadbian, the SNC’s envoy to the United Nations, said opposition groups need “a month or so” to prepare for the political talks that would begin in tandem with a ceasefire.
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The Jan. 1 deadline is “too ambitious a timetable”, the United Nations representative for the Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed opposition group, told reporters Friday morning.
