Timeline for political transition in Syria agreed at high-level talks

Michele, you’re with us from Vienna.

“This tells us very clearly we are all together in this”.

MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Nice to be here.

Invoking the need for joint action after the attacks in Paris, foreign ministers of almost 20 nations agreed Saturday to an ambitious yet incomplete plan for bringing peace to Syria and ending its role as a breeding ground for ISIS and other radical Islamic groups. That’s where the talks for a political transition in the country come in, he said. One of the objectives now, he says, is to see how concretely countries can coordinate better in the fight against ISIS.

SIMON: Everyone, of course, there seems to – not just seems to be – they are condemning the attacks in Paris. What about other aspects, though, of what they have to discuss that might be a bit tougher?

In comments aimed at those who say the US has done too little, Kerry touted the progress of the U.S.-led coalition in bombing ISIS targets over the last 14 months – pointing to the ouster of ISIS from the Syrian border town of Kobani and the Iraqi city of Tikrit, the killing of top ISIS leaders and the humanitarian mission that helped save members of the Yadizi minority under threat from ISIS last summer. Russia, meanwhile, considers most of the rebel groups fighting Assad to be terrorists, including the “moderate” groups backed by the USA, and there are concerns that if a cease-fire were signed, Russia would simply continue to bomb anti-Assad rebel groups under the guise of fighting Jabhat al-Nusra.

Moscow’s proposals for elections in Syria following an 18-month constitutional reform process have received a frosty reception in the West because they do not guarantee Mr Assad’s departure from power.

After years of failed diplomatic efforts, Kerry indicated that Russia’s newly begun air campaign on Assad’s behalf, while challenging, could present an opportunity to act on a shared global belief in the danger posed by the Islamic State. And that’s where this diplomacy has always been stuck.

SIMON: It seems from this distance that Sergey Lavrov made a point of appearing alongside Secretary Kerry today.

“There are a number of hard issues of which the future of Bashar al-Assad is ‎probably the most hard and that will certainly be an important subject tomorrow”, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters in Vienna after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shukri. They did speak side by side here in Vienna, but he didn’t get into those kinds of disagreements.

While USA leaders have long stated that Assad can not be allowed to remain in power, Kerry and other US officials have softened their tone on the matter in recent weeks – suggesting instead that Assad has no place in Syria’s “long-term future” but leaving the door open for him to stay around during a longer transition period.