World Powers Will Try to Bridge Gaps in Second Round of Syria Talks
November 11, 2015
Pamela Dockins
Syria's political turmoil and Islamic State unrest will be high on the agenda for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as he leaves Thursday on a three-nation trip.
In Austria, Kerry will join officials of other world powers Saturday for the second round of talks on Syria’s political future, following their initial round in late October.
In a communique, 17 world powers, the United Nations and the European Union agreed on the importance of accelerating diplomatic efforts to end Syria’s civil unrest. They also agreed to a U.N.-led process that would include talks between the Syrian government and the moderate opposition, along with a possible cease-fire.
But stark differences remain over some issues, including the status of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
At the end of the first round of talks in Vienna, Kerry said, “[Russian Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov, [Iranian] Foreign Minister [Mohammad Javad} Zarif and I and others agree to disagree. The United States’ position is there is no way that President Assad can unite and govern Syria.”
Proposals floated
Russia has floated several proposals for the upcoming talks. It circulated a plan for ending the Syrian war that calls for drafting a new constitution in up to 18 months, followed by presidential elections in 2017.
Western diplomats have indicated the Russian plan will not be a focal point of the Vienna talks.
Syrian opposition groups said the plan was unacceptable because Russia’s goal would be to keep Assad in power. A member of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition denounced the Russian proposals emphatically.
"The Syrian people have never accepted the dictatorship of Assad and they will not accept that it is reintroduced or reformulated in another way," said Monzer Akbik, according to Reuters.
In Saudi Arabia, one of Assad's most outspoken opponents, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir also said this week that the Syrian president must be removed.
"If Bashar al-Assad's departure is not completed in a peaceful manner, then it will be completed in a military manner," Jubeir told reporters in Riyadh after a summit of Arab and Latin American leaders.
Opposition in Syria
Russia, though it recently stepped up diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict, has launched hundreds of airstrikes on rebel-held territory in Syria. Moscow contends its air campaign targets militants of the Islamic State group, but the U.S. says 85 percent to 90 percent of all Russian airstrikes over the past six weeks have hit members of the moderate anti-Assad opposition.
Reports from Syria also have shown that many civilians are among the casualties of Russia's air campaign.
Lavrov said world powers meeting in Vienna needed to agree on a list of terrorist organizations in Syria. An agreement would be part of a broader plan to identify the country’s legitimate opposition groups.
“There is no meaningful moderate opposition,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense and security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There are people who have a certain credibility as figures. They do not represent any clear factions or large majority of Syrians.”
However, the makeup of the Vienna talks could help produce progress on this issue, said Perry Cammack, a Middle East analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“The Vienna talks themselves are a broad tent, so I think we need to use that principle for the opposition as well, to include as many groups as we can,” he said.
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