All 15 members of the council agreed to approve the text, which came after hours of negotiation between world powers on Friday.
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BARACK OBAMA: They’re not really moving the needle that much and despite a sizable deployment inside of Syria.
Western powers had hoped the council would rubber-stamp a resolution endorsing a two-year road map for talks between Syria’s government and opposition on a unity government, expected to begin in January, and eventual elections.
The resolution asked Ban through the offices of his Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura to determine the modalities of a ceasefire and plan to support its implementation, while urging Member States, in particular members of the ISSG, to accelerate all efforts to achieve a ceasefire, including through pressing all relevant parties to adhere to one.
Missing from the talks so far has been the man at the center of the storm: Mr. Assad, whose barrel bombs, chemical weapons and vicious tactics have so embittered a huge segment of his own population that his critics insist he can no longer rule the country.
Syria’s main opposition group said a January 1 deadline for starting peace talks was “too ambitious”.
That plan, however, makes no mention of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s future in the government.
More than 250,000 people have lost their lives and almost half of the country’s population have been displaced in the foreign-backed conflict that was started in March 2011.
“Now I think there will be follow-up steps in terms of countries meeting again to set criteria which will help filter the list”, said Judeh, whose country is tasked with putting the final list together. The group also met in Saudi Arabia last month. “Without a ceasefire, peace talks can not continue to produce results”, Wang said. It also endorsed the continued battle to defeat Islamic State militants who have seized large swaths of both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
He said his country has seen “no lists we can agree upon” of Syrian opposition groups that should be included in peace negotiations, or of Syrian groups that should be considered terrorist organizations instead.
By contrast, British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said the draft was “in good shape”.
“Within a month or so, two months, decisions are going to have to start to be made about the devolution of some power” and the creation of a transitional body agreed to by Syria’s government and opposition with full executive power, Kerry said.
Within six months, the process should establish “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, with U.N.-supervised “free and fair elections” to be held within 18 months. “This is outrageous”, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council before the vote. Najib Ghadbian estimated that a month of preparation is needed. The United States supports groups warring with Assad, a close Kremlin ally.
“For us, the utmost priority is to stop the killing”.
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“We know that Daesh can never be allowed to gain control in Syria, so we have a global imperative here to deal with a terrorist entity but also to end the civil war”, he said.
