UN Security Council adopts resolution laying out an end to Syrian war

The draft calls the transition Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, stressing that the “Syrian people will decide the future of Syria”.

Delegates from across the world had gathered in NY earlier Friday to discuss the conflict, which has left 250,000 dead and caused millions of Syrians to flee, intensifying the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe.

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.

Putin did not elaborate on the specifics of Russia’s cooperation with the USA and Syria in the trailer, which contained a segment of an interview filmed last week following the Russian leader’s annual press conference.

The resolution would be a rare gesture of unity in a Security Council that has been bitterly divided on Syria.

“There will be some setbacks and stumbles along the way but the fact that we’ve got a United Nations resolution, backed by the permanent five members, including Russian Federation, the fact that we’ve got an ongoing process, with oppositionists working together on a common platform, the fact that we’ve got the relevant worldwide powers round the table, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all points to some real progress”.

“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 text, however, does not touch on one of the most contentious issues in the peace effort: Assad s fate.

But the United Nations representative for the main Syrian opposition group – the Syrian National Coalition – said the deadline was “too ambitious a timetable”.

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved Friday a resolution calling for a cease-fire and political talks to help end the civil war in Syria.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, top, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, listen during a meeting of foreign ministers at the U.N. Security Council, Friday, Dec. 18, 2015 at U.N. headquarters, following a vote…

“I’m not sure it’s going to happen because there are some unfortunately deliberate, or not deliberate, attempts to undercut the Vienna documents and we don’t want to see that”, he told reporters on Thursday without elaborating.

Lavrov was responding to statements by Kerry that 80 per cent of the ongoing Russian airstrikes in Syria was aimed at weakening the rebel groups fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. He said some countries “sent 10, 15, 20 names” and others more.

“But I hope that we will look back on today as a significant step in that direction”.

USA and European officials say that Assad can not run in any elections organized along the lines major powers agreed in the two previous ministerial meetings in Vienna.