UN backs Syria peace plan
OPPOSITION REACTS COOLLY TO INITIATIVE
No mention of Assad
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19, (Agencies): The UN Security Council’s unanimous support of a peace process for Syria that is set to begin next month with government-opposition talks and a ceasefire represents its strongest gesture yet in support of a solution to the civil war.
The council’s adoption of a resolution Friday backing the plan comes amid world powers’ growing sense that the top priority in Syria should be the defeat of the Islamic State group, which has exploited the country’s years of chaos and created a base from which it promotes deadly attacks abroad.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that the world is going to see in the next few months whether the peace process actually takes hold. He urged key powers, including top Syria allies Russia and Iran, to match their words with actions.
“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.
But the resolution makes no mention of the most contentious issue, the future role of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Kerry rejected the idea that Friday’s vote and discussions put off tough decisions on that issue.
The United States, its European allies, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations have insisted that Assad must go, though Kerry said “everyone” has by now realized that demanding Assad’s departure up front in the process was “in fact, prolonging the war.”
Kerry said “sharp differences” remain on Assad and stressed that “Assad has lost the ability ... to unite the country.”
Russia and Iran have consistently rejected foreign governments’ calls for Assad’s departure.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the Syrian people must decide their own future — and that “also covers the future of Syria’s president, and that is our deep conviction.” He told reporters that he was “not too optimistic about what has been achieved today, but a very important step has been made ... for Syrians to determine the future of their country.”
Criticized
Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari, criticized the “glaring contradictions” between the talk about letting the Syrian people decide their fate and what he called interference in his country’s sovereignty by talking about replacing Assad.
The Syrian conflict has lasted nearly five years and killed more than 300,000 people. An estimated 4 million refugees have played a large part in the migrant crisis in Europe and Syria’s neighboring countries. The UN says tens of thousands of people are trapped in besieged areas.
“Thousands of people have been forced to live in grass and weeds. This is outrageous,” UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon told the council before the vote. “The people of Syria have suffered enough.”
Diplomats have made clear that the blueprint the Security Council endorsed Friday will not end the fighting in Syria. Imposing and monitoring a cease-fire are impossible in areas under control of the Islamic State group.
The resolution calls on the UN secretary-general to convene representatives of the Syrian government and opposition “to engage in formal negotiations on a political transition process on an urgent basis, with a target of early January 2016 for the initiation of talks.”
Within six months, the process should establish “credible, inclusive and nonsectarian governance” and set a schedule for drafting a new constitution. UNsupervised “free and fair elections” are to be held within 18 months under the new constitution.
Notably, the resolution says members of Syria’s diaspora can vote in the election, which gives more say to people who have fled the conflict.
UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura said invitations to the peace talks among Syrian parties will go out in January, and Kerry estimated that talks would begin in the middle or end of January.
“In January, we expect to be at the table and implement a full cease-fire,” he said.
The Security Council vote followed a meeting of ministers from 17 nations who came to New York to try to build momentum for a cease-fire and the start of negotiations. The ministers said they would meet again next month.
One key issue that lies ahead is deciding which groups in Syria should be part of an opposition negotiating team and which should be considered terrorist organizations instead.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he presented lists submitted from each country of groups they consider terrorist organizations. He said some countries “sent 10, 15, 20 names” and others more.
A group of countries will join Jordan in developing that list, Kerry told reporters. Lavrov warned against efforts to “divide terrorists among good and bad ones.”
De Mistura is now tasked with pulling together a final negotiating team for the Syrian opposition. He was upbeat, saying “mission impossible is becoming potentially possible, thanks to what we saw today.”
Skepticism
A UN-backed roadmap to end the Syrian war was met with scepticism Saturday by members of the country’s fractured opposition who insist President Bashar al-Assad must go to achieve peace.
The US and Russian initiative, unanimously approved by the UN Security Council on Friday, foresees talks between the rebels and the regime and a rapid ceasefire, perhaps even next month.
But the plan was described as unrealis-
tic by the Istanbul-based National Coalition, the main Syrian opposition grouping.
The resolution “undermines the outcome of the meetings of revolutionary forces in Riyadh and waters down previous UN resolutions concerning a political solution in Syria,” coalition head Khaled Khoja said on Twitter.
Fellow coalition member Samir Nashar said bombing by the regime and Russia must stop for there to be a sustainable ceasefire.
“Given the reality on the ground and the impasse on the fate of Bashar alAssad, the agreement is absolutely not applicable,” he said.
The Security Council met after the latest round of talks by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), which had gathered in New York to renew its push for peace.
“In January we hope and expect to be at the table and to be able to implement a full ceasefire,” US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters.
“And that means all the barrel bombs will stop, all the bombing, all the shooting, all the attacks on either side.”
The United States and Arab allies remain convinced Assad must leave office as part of the process, but his allies Moscow and Tehran insist this is a decision for the Syrian people.
The resolution does not touch on this vital issue.
“We often hear the argument that without resolving the Assad question, it is impossible to truly coordinate in the fight against terrorism,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“This is a dangerous logic, a dangerous approach,” RIA Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
Kerry — who has “agreed to disagree” with Moscow on Assad’s fate — emphasised that victory over the Islamic State group hinges on a peaceful settlement in the broader Syrian civil war.
“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, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
“President Assad in our judgement ...
has lost the ability, the credibility to be able to unite the country and to provide the moral credibility to be able to govern it.”
But experts nevertheless see a narrowing of differences between the major powers.
“The West and Russia’s position are coming closer together,” Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told AFP.
“Russia would not have voted for a resolution in which it would have been written that Assad needs to step down. The absence of Assad is a form of compromise to get the resolution through.”
Karim Bitar, head of research at the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, described the UN-backed plan as “a very significant first step” but added that “many ambiguities and ulterior motives remain”.
“Sunni regional powers still fear that this pragmatism perpetuates the status quo and allows Assad to stay too long during a transition period,” he added.
The Security Council resolution calls for “free and fair elections” supervised by the United Nations within 18 months in which all Syrians, including those overseas, would be eligible to vote.
More than 250,000 people have died since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, and millions more have fled their homes.
Regime troops backed by Russian warplanes have sought to wrest back ground from Assad’s opponents in recent weeks.
They suffered a setback Saturday as rebels managed to recapture a hilltop overlooking a strategic highway in Assad’s coastal heartland, Latakia, just days after they were forced to retreat.
Eighteen pro-government fighters and several rebels were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group.
Friday’s New York talks were the first by the ISSG since Saudi Arabia gathered a coalition of Syria rebel groups to form an opposition negotiating team.
Kerry said that there were still sharp disagreements between the ISSG parties, some of which sponsor armed factions on the ground, as to which groups should be
banned.
Iran said it would work with Russia, Oman, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and France to prepare a list of extremist groups it wants to see banned from talks.
“Terrorist groups have no place in this national dialogue,” Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.
Meanwhile, airstrikes in Syria reportedly carried out by Russian warplanes killed at least 14 people on Friday, according to activists, while President Bashar Assad made a rare public appearance at a church in the capital, Damascus, attending preparations for Christmas Eve, his office said.
The airstrikes took place in the northwestern rebel-held town of Jisr alShughour and the casualties included women and children, two activist groups said.
One of the groups, the Local Coordination Committees, said the air raids were carried out by Russian warplanes and struck residential buildings. The group said 17 people were killed.
The other group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes killed 14 people. One of the killed women was pregnant, the Observatory said.
Meanwhile, a photograph released by Assad’s office showed the president and his wife, Asma, inside the Notre Dame de Damas Church in the capital. The president chatted with men and women and listened to their recitals of poems, media in Damascus said.
Assad has been making rare public appearances as the fighting around the country intensifies and rebels outside Damascus have been hitting the city with mortar shells.
Earlier Friday, a top Syrian opposition figure said in Saudi Arabia said Assad should have no role during a transitional period to end the country’s civil war.
Former Prime Minister Riad Hijab said that “confidence-building measures” should be in place ahead of the transitional period, such as release of detainees, lifting of a siege imposed on rebel-held areas and a halt to airstrikes.