Free Syrian Army fighters chat as they hold a position under anti-sniper curtains stretched across a street in the city of Aleppo yesterday.
DAMASCUS: Syria’s main opposition National Coalition yesterday said any political settlement to the country’s two-year-old conflict must start with President Bashar Al Assad’s ouster, implicitly rejecting a US-Russian initiative for dialogue with the regime.
UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, hailed the agreement between Washington and Moscow to push both sides in the Syrian conflict to end the bloodshed and sit down for talks.
“The National Coalition welcomes all international efforts which call for a political solution to achieve the aspirations of the Syrian people and their hope for a democratic state, so long as they begin with the departure of Bashar Al Assad and his regime,” the opposition umbrella group said.
The response could be a blow to the US-Russian initiative, which is based on an international deal agreed in Geneva last year that makes no mention of Assad stepping down.
The opposition has long insisted that the embattled president cannot stay on, but the regime insists that Assad’s future will be decided in elections, with a presidential vote scheduled for 2014.
“This is the first hopeful news concerning that unhappy country in a very long time,” Brahimi said of the deal announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russia counterpart Sergei Lavrov after talks in Moscow.
“The statements made in Moscow constitute a very significant first step forward. It is nevertheless only a first step,” said Brahimi, who an aide said has been mulling resignation over the apparent absence of a political track to resolve a war that has killed more than 70,000 people.
“There is every reason to expect” backing for the accord from the remaining UN Security Council permanent members” — Britain, China and France, the veteran Algerian diplomat added.
“It is equally important that the entire region mobilises in the support of the process.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Wednesday he will fly to the Russian resort of Sochi on Friday to discuss the Syrian conflict with President Vladimir Putin.
The US-Russian deal was announced at a joint press conference, with Lavrov saying the two countries were ready to use all their resources to bring “the government and opposition to the negotiating table.”
“We agreed that Russia and the United States will encourage both the Syria government and opposition groups to find a political solution,” he said.
Lavrov and Kerry said they hoped they could convene an international conference by the end of May to build on a deal agreed by world powers in Geneva last June for a peaceful solution in Syria. AFP
