World foreign ministers meet to hammer out plan for launching Syria peace talks

The talks were planned to precede a vote in the United Nations Security Council later on Friday on a resolution that would endorse a road map for the first negotiations between Damascus and the opposition over the terms of a peace deal and political transition.

US secretary of state John Kerry (C) talks to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (R) before the start of the meeting on Syria as UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon (L) looks on, at a hotel in New York on December 18, 2015. Jewel Samad/Pool/ReutersShow less

NEW YORK // Foreign ministers from a coalition of 17 world and regional powers backing both sides of the Syrian conflict met in New York on Friday to try to hammer out a plan for launching direct talks on a truce and political transition.

The talks by the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) were planned to precede a vote in the United Nations Security Council later on Friday on a resolution that would endorse a road map for the first negotiations between Damascus and the opposition over the terms of a peace deal and political transition.

The support group includes Bashar Al Assad’s patrons Iran and Russia as well as the opposition’s main backers Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,

The road map, which was agreed to last month by the ISSG during two previous rounds of minister-level talks in Vienna, calls for a ceasefire between Mr Al Assad’s forces and rebel groups excluding ISIL and Jabhat Al Nusra.

It also calls for political talks to start by January 1. The talks would focus on the composition of a transitional governing body that includes all of Syria’s stakeholders and would be formed within six months, before free elections after 18 months.

The Syrian National Coalition, the main political opposition group, said that the New Year start date was unrealistic and that Russia must halt its air strikes against rebels as part of the ceasefire. The group needs “a month or so” to prepare, said the SNC’s UN envoy Najib Ghadbian. “I don’t think those timetables are realistic.”

But diplomats indicated on Friday that the talks in New York were unlikely to yield a breakthrough on the key disagreements that have plagued the negotiations process despite momentum gathering over the past month in the wake of ISIL’s attacks in Paris and its downing of a Russian passenger plane. World powers hope to end the war so attention can be turned toward defeating ISIL.

A draft of the resolution obtained by Agence France-Presse calls for peace talks to begin in early January and asks the United Nations to bring the Syrian government and the opposition to the table for formal negotiations on a political transition to end Syria’s nearly five-year war.

A resolution would signal a closer alignment between international powers that have been divided over Syria. “We have not been able to agree so far in the Security Council on the political process in Syria, not even on any kind of language regarding transition, so that would really mark a turning point,” said Thierry Caboche, a French diplomat.

But the resolution would not address the main stumbling block, the role that Mr Al Assad will play in the transitional government and whether he will be eligible to stand in elections.

The talks at the Palace Hotel in New York were the first ISGG meeting since a conference of opposition political and rebel forces in Riyadh that was aimed at unifying and creating a representative opposition negotiating team. The newly elected head of the bloc, former Syrian prime minister Riad Hijab, said on Friday that direct talks would not begin until Mr Al Assad leaves power.

“We’re not entering any negotiation until all the points in ‘Geneva 1’ (a road map agreed upon in 2012) are applied, which is that Assad and his government must not be in power, the transitional period has to be without him and he must be tried for his crimes,” said Mr Hijab.

Tehran insists that Mr Al Assad’s fate must be decided by Syrian voters. Moscow has appeared to diverge from Iran on the question of the Syrian president, and has indicated to western and Arab diplomats that it may be open to his departure at the end of the transition process, but not before elections.

“[T]he Russians have got to the point privately where they accept that Assad will have gone by the end of this transition, they’re just not prepared to say that publicly,” a senior western diplomat told Reuters on Thursday.

Jordan had been tasked with coordinating a list of accepted Syrian opposition groups. The Jordanian foreign minister said on the sidelines of the talks that a finalised list was being negotiated but that he did not expect agreement at the meeting.

Even if the sides can agree on the outstanding disputes and begin direct negotiations early next year, there are few signs that they will lead to a political transition in the near future.

“The US is trying to concentrate on what has already been agreed on [in Vienna], but they are not really moving forward the discussion on Assad’s fate and how he is going to leave power, when he is going to leave power,” said Munzer Akbik, a member of the SNC.

“This process by itself is not going to, in the short and medium term, have any breakthrough on the main issues.”