Diplomats set plan for political change in Syria

The foreign ministers met ahead of a Group of 20 summit of world leaders starting Sunday in the Turkish coastal resort of Antalya, where the war across the border in Syria is likely to dominate the discussion.

Leonhard Foeger/Pool Photo via AP Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrive to address the media before a meeting in Vienna, Austria, Saturday Nov.14, 2015.

“We have agreed with Syrian regime and Syrian opposition representatives to kick off a meeting under the supervision of United Nations”, Kerry said, adding: “We support a transition period within 6 months led by Syrians”.

“(The countries) affirmed their support for a ceasefire… and for a Syrian-led process that will, within a target of six months, establish credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance, and set a schedule and process for drafting a new constitution”, the statement said.

In a joint statement, the countries involved in the talks, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, laid out a plan including formal talks between the government and opposition by January 1.

Russian foreign minister Lavrov said Russia and the United States are keeping in touch to prevent conflict in Syria, as both sides deployed military forces in the region.

Vowing France would not stop its “international action”, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the Paris killings underlined the need to “increase the global coordination in the struggle against Daesh”, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym.

Foreign ministers and other officials attending talks on Syria’s political future say Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris have underscored the need to try to resolve Syria’s crisis. If Assad is prepared for negotiations, he can be part of the that process in Syria, Kerry added. Breaking the ISIL-imposed siege of the Kweiris airbase took a month of heavy air reinforcement supported by Iranian-backed militias, following a seven-month effort to break it. It is also telling that Iran’s notorious spymaster Qasem Soleimani, not Mr Al Assad, appeared among the fighters who broke the siege, and fighters were carrying the flag of the Iraqi Hizbollah Nujabah militia. “A realistic timeframe…is two to three years”.

“We did not come here to impose our collective will on the Syrian people, exactly the opposite”, he told reporters at the end of the talks.

What’s the mission? The mission is to defeat Isis, we’re not going to defeat the ideology immediately, that’s going to take a much longer time but it’s much easier to make sure that we can’t have attacks projected on us such as the ones we’ve had in Paris if Isis does not control territory and there is nowhere for people to go, of whatever type, to go and fight for them.

“I can not say… that we are on the threshold of a comprehensive agreement, no”, Kerry had said on Thursday.

“I am concerned that we are able to know less today about what terrorists are plotting than we were several years ago”, Thornberry said.

He said French President Francois Hollande “should change his policy”. Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIL) militant group, operating in Syria and Iraq. While the diplomats agreed on a U.N.-administered cease fire enforcement mechanism they failed to reach consensus on which groups other than the Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates would not be eligible for the truce.

Kerry earlier said that the attacks were an “assault on our common humanity”, and promised that the violence had strengthened the group’s resolve to find solutions to end Syria’s war.