Iran to continue support for Syria: Deputy FM

President Barack Obama had previously asserted in November that Assad must leave office before peace could be achieved, but that position shifted recently, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying the US was “not seeking a so-called “regime change” as it is known in Syria”.

It calls on Ban to present options for a ceasefire-monitoring mechanism within a month.

Originally, Western powers hoped the council would rubber-stamp a resolution endorsing a two-year road map for talks between Syria’s government and opposition on a unity government expected to begin in January and eventual elections.

The world powers most implicated in Syria’s civil war met on Friday to renew efforts to bind Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its rebel foes into a ceasefire and peace talks.

It also includes representatives of fighting groups such as the powerful Islamist Ahrar al-Sham and a number of Free Syrian Army units that have received military support from states opposed to Assad such as Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Nevertheless, Kerry – who has “agreed to disagree” with Moscow on Assad’s fate – said the vote would act as a springboard for forging ahead with peace talks. “Some countries sent 15 to 20, others sent more”, he told reporters.

“This council is sending a clear message to all concerned”, Kerry said.

It’s the first time Russian Federation and the United States have agreed on a roadmap for peace in Syria.

Iran will also “support inter-Syrian dialogue” aimed at ending the conflict, he said in remarks carried Saturday by the official IRNA news agency.

“Here is affirmation of the fundamental principles of the political settlement, namely that Syria should remain unified, secular, pluri-religious and pluri-ethnic, comfortable and safe for all groups of its people and only the Syrian people themselves can define its future”, said Lavrov.

– Expresses support for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria “to come into effect as soon as the representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition have begun initial steps towards a political transition under United Nations auspices”.

He made the remarks following the third round of global talks on the crisis in Syria in NY on Friday. De Mistura said invitations to the talks will go out in January, at least.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said Assad’s government was prepared to take part in the talks in good faith.

“Purely as a matter of reality, if the war is to end it is imperative that the Syrian people agree to an alternative in terms of their governance”, he said.

Diplomats said the main problem in the negotiations on the resolution involved Russian and Iranian concerns about how to refer to a bloc of opposition groups that would join U.N.-led peace talks with the Syrian government.

On the ground, Suspected Russian air strikes have killed 32 civilians, half of them women and children, in three areas in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday.

HOF: But I think there’s always the danger that a process can end up being, in effect, an open-ended permission slip for a continued mass murder in Syria.