Putin wins backing from Iran, Turkey for new Syria peace push

RIYADH/SOCHI: Syrian opposition groups will stick to their demand President Bashar Assad leave power at the start of any political transition, Al Arabiya television reported on Wednesday.

The opposition groups were meeting in Saudi Arabia to seek a unified position ahead of UN-backed peace talks, after years in which Russian military intervention has helped the regime recapture all of Syria’s major cities.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said the only solution to the conflict was through a consensus that would achieve the demands of the Syrian people.

A draft of the meeting’s final statement still includes the demand that Assad leave office at the start of any transition, the channel said.

UN peace talks mediator Staffan de Mistura urged the opposition figures gathered at a five-star hotel in Riyadh to have the “hard discussions” necessary to reach a “common line.”

“A strong, unified team is a creative partner in Geneva and we need that, one who can actually explore more than one way to arrive to the goals that we need to have,” he said in opening remarks, referring to the next round of UN-sponsored talks.

The Riyadh summit was open to more than 140 opposition figures representing a number of groups, including the HNC.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin won the backing of Turkey and Iran on Wednesday to host a Syrian peace congress, taking the central role in a major diplomatic push to finally end the civil war.

Two days after being visited by Assad in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, President Putin hosted his counterparts Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani there.

In a joint statement, the three leaders called on the Syrian regime and moderate opposition to “participate constructively” in the planned congress, to be held in the same city on a date they did not specify.

“The congress will look at the key questions on Syria’s national agenda,” Putin told reporters at the summit, sitting alongside Rouhani and Erdogan. “First of all that is the drawing-up of a framework for the future structure of the state, the adoption of a new constitution, and, on the basis of that, the holding of elections under United Nations supervision.”

Putin said there is a real chance to end the war in Syria, according to RT TV.

“The Russian-Iranian-Turkish efforts prevented the disintegration of Syria and