Russian Peace Plan Rejected by Syrian Opposition
Leaders of the western-backed Syrian opposition have rejected a Russian proposal to end the county’s violence through an 18-month constitutional reform process leading to early presidential elections, the Guardian reports.
Khaled Khoja, head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), repeated the group’s stance that the only way to end Syria’s crisis was for Bashar al-Assad to step down.
The Russian proposal, leaked to the Associated Press on Wednesday, would have Assad lead the country though an 18-month reform process and avoided any mention of the beleaguered president’s future.
The U.S., Britain and other global power holders have said Assad could remain in power during a brief transition period but then must step down.
“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, a senior SNC official.
A second round of international talks on the crisis in Syria is set to take place in Vienna on Saturday. The group’s first meeting in Vienna on October 30 included Iran, Assad’s biggest backer, in addition to Russia, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia among others.
Iran, however, is not clear on whether it will attend the second round of negotiations.
West Rejects Russian Plan for Syria
Western diplomats have dismissed Russia’s leaked plan for political transition in Syria, saying it will not be a central point at the second round of international talks in Vienna set for Saturday.
“We are aware of the Russian proposals,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse. “The eight-point plan itself is not central to the discussions in Vienna but Russia is.”
Several Western diplomats reportedly dismissed the Russian plan for an 18-month political reform period when it was presented two weeks ago because it did not address Assad’s fate.
The plan, reportedly detailed within a document titled,” approach to the settlement of the Syria crisis,” called for the establishment of a constitutional commission made up of “domestic and outside opposition” groups.
Focus in Syria Is to Restore Strong Government, not Assad’s Fate, Rouhani Says
Iran’s president said Wednesday that the focus in Syria should be on restoring a strong government to Damascus and not on the fate of Bashar al-Assad, Agence France-Presse reports.
In an interview with the France 2 television channel, President Hassan Rouhani said that when it comes to solving the crisis in Syria, it is “not a question of a person, it is a question of security and stability.”
“We must all make efforts to eradicate terrorism in Syria and ensure that peace and stability return,” he said. “It is all in the hands of the Syrians. It is for them to decide who is their leader.”
Recommended Reads
- The Washington Post: Administration Will Soon Be Forced to Confront Big Decisions on Syria
- The New York Times: Life After ISIS and Assad: A Journey in a Free Syria
- Forbes: Russia’s Syria Propaganda
- The Guardian: A Perilous Journey: Khalid’s Flight to Europe from Syria – an Illustrated Account
- Al-Monitor: Morek’s Fall Hinders Syrian Army’s Campaign
Top image: Syrian government troops pray inside the Kweiras air base, east of Aleppo on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015, after government forces broke a siege that had been imposed by ISIS militants on the northern military air base since 2013. (SANA via AP)