United Nations endorses peace road map for Syria

The Security Council reiterated earlier calls for member states to suppress terrorist acts by Islamic State (IS), Al-Nusra Front and all other terrorist groups.

A peace plan agreed to last month by 20 nations meeting in Vienna sets a January 1 deadline for the start of negotiations between Assad’s government and opposition groups. At the same time, diplomats worked to overcome divisions on the text of the resolution.

Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn said: “UN Security Council Resolution 2254 is a very important step on the path to bringing the bad conflict in Syria to an end”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, sitting as President of the Council, said that through the resolution, the world body is sending a “clear message to all concerned that the time is now to stop the killing in Syria and lay the groundwork for a government that the long-suffering people of that battered land can support”.

The conflict in Syria started in mid-2011 after protests against Assad’s rule.

“President Assad in our judgment… has lost the ability, the credibility to be able to unite the country and to provide the moral credibility to be able to govern it”.

The UN special envoy on the conflict, Staffan de Mistura, said he would send out invitations to talks in January.

Zarif said, “It is utterly absurd that those who have denied their own population the most rudimentary tenets of democracy, such as a constitution and elections, are now self-declared champions of democracy in Syria”.

The other group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the airstrikes killed 14 people. “This is outrageous”, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council before the vote.

“We know that Daesh can never be allowed to gain control in Syria so we have a global imperative here to deal with a terrorist entity but also to end the civil war”, he said.

The war in Syria is estimated to have left more than 250,000 dead and four million displaced.

“It will be up to Syrians to decide”, said Amir Abdollahian.

Within six months, the process should establish “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, with U.N.-supervised “free and fair elections” to be held within 18 months.

Assad reiterated his rejection of foreign calls for his resignation, saying it’s up to Syrian voters and not foreign politicians to decide who should lead Syria.

The resolution also says ceasefire efforts should move forward in parallel with the talks, and it asks Mr Ban to report within a month on ways to monitor it.

The draft notes that the cease-fire “will not apply to offensive or defensive actions” against groups considered terrorist organizations, meaning that airstrikes by Russia, France and the U.S.-led coalition apparently would not be affected.

Major Tim Smith, a spokesman for the American Air Force’s Central Command, said: “The increasing number of Russian-supplied advanced air defence systems in Syria, including SA-17s, is another example that Russia and the regime seek to complicate the global counter-Daesh coalition’s air campaign”.

Lavrov noted that it appears that some parties want a “hope of overthrowing Assad” as a precondition to the fight against terrorist groups.