Putin: Russia has more military capability to use in Syria

The 15-member UN Security Council Friday unanimously approved Resolution 2254 on the Syrian conflict, endorsing a roadmap for a Syrian-led political transition to end the country’s crisis.

It says it should establish “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance” followed within 18 months by UN-supervised “free and fair elections” with a parallel effort to secure a ceasefire.

Foreign Ministers vote during a UN Security Council meeting on Syria at the United Nations on Decemb …

ANALYSIS: Who is Who in Syria’s Civil War?

The plan outlined by US Secretary of State John Kerry aims to put into place a transitional government within six months and have elections within a year and a half.

However, Syrian ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari criticised the “glaring contradictions” between the talk about letting the Syrian people decide their fate and talking about replacing Mr Assad. It also endorsed the continued battle to defeat Islamic State militants who have seized large swaths of both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

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

While insisting that Assad has lost the “moral credibility” to govern Syria, Kerry said that Washington and Moscow had “agreed to disagree” on his future.

“We often hear the argument that without resolving the Assad question, it is impossible to truly co-ordinate in the fight against terrorism”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Asked about the presence of Iranian military advisers in Syria, Zarif said the move shows the Islamic Republic’s seriousness in fighting the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

“How could this man unite a people that he has in part massacred?” Foreign ministers from 17 countries, including Lavrov, Kerry and other European and Middle Eastern ministers, as well as top diplomats from regional rivals Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran, were in NY for the meetings.

THE United Nations security council gave unanimous support to a peace process for Syria late on Friday.

One key issue that lies ahead is deciding which groups in Syria should be part of an opposition negotiating team and which should be considered terrorist organizations instead.

But it does not include the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, or Islamic State, among the strongest opponents of Assad.

Iran’s decision to step up its coordination with Russia was made after a meeting last month between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, according to a senior Iranian official with knowledge of the discussions.

That deadline is “too ambitious a timetable”, the United Nations representative for the Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed opposition group, told reporters Friday.