World powers meet on Syria conflict
The talks between Syria’s government and opposition should begin in early January, the resolution said. It also calls for the implementation of a nationwide cease-fire in parallel with intra-Syrian peace talks.
The Syrian war, which is heading towards its fifth year, has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced almost 12 million, the United Nations says.
The agreement made no mention of the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Kerry said that the positions of the U.S. and Russian Federation on Syria are “fundamentally very similar” and expressed readiness to further cooperation. But Western powers, Turkey, Saudi Arabia reluctantly agreed to allow him to remain in place during a transition period.
Meeting at Foreign Minister level, the Council asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to convene Government and opposition representatives in formal negotiations early next month on a political transition as a step to lasting peace, in line with the 2012 Geneva Communiqu and consistent with the 14 November 2015 International Syria Support Group (ISSG) on the issue.
Diplomats said no breakthrough was expected.
The talks come a day after security council finance ministers, including Chancellor George Osborne, agreed a resolution to step up efforts to cut off all sources of funding for the Islamic State (IS) terror group – also known as Isil, Isis or Daesh – in Syria and Iraq. “We are a sovereign country”, he said in an interview with Nieuwsuur on Thursday.
Hopes of a second resolution were boosted when Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he backed a draft being circulated by USA secretary of state John Kerry.
Those around the table included the United States, key European nations and Saudi Arabia, who support the Syrian opposition, and the Assad government’s top allies, Russian Federation and Iran.
The resolution, however, does not touch on one of the most contentious issues in the peace effort: the fate of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
The five permanent Security Council members which have veto powers on Friday had agreed on the text of the draft resolution prior to the vote, in which the remaining 10 members also gave their approval, Reuters reported.
The Russians have long stood up for Assad, a long-time ally who assures that Syria remains Russia’s foothold in the Middle East.
The UN special envoy on the conflict, Staffan de Mistura, said he would send out invitations to talks in January. The plan says nothing about Assad’s future but says that “free and fair elections would be held pursuant to the new constitution within 18 months”.
“So there is a possibility – I put it no higher than that – that Friday’s meeting will end with a UN Security Council resolution”.
Obama, who has ruled out any significant deployment of US ground forces, has failed to build an American-trained, local fighting force or cajole Arab partners into sending their forces into Syria to defeat the Islamic State.
The members of the body are representatives of political opposition groups inside and outside Syria.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the talks between the Syrian government and opposition would only succeed if there were credible guarantees on Assad’s departure. “The time is now to stop the killing in Syria and to lay the groundwork for a government the people of that battered land can support”. His successor Lakhdar Brahimi frequently beseeched the Council to do more and often apologised to the Syrian people for failing them.
Still, it notes that the cease-fire “will not apply to offensive or defensive actions” against the Islamic State group and al-Nusra Front.