Rebel alliance says Russian Federation must stop bombing FSA

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Syria needed to begin preparing for new elections.

“They pledged to continue and intensify support to the moderate Syrian opposition while the political track is being pursued”, the State Department statement said after Kerry’s meetings in Saudi Arabia. They failed to agree on any concrete steps other than to meet again, probably this week.

According to the official Saudi Press Agency, the two men discussed recent developments in the region, especially in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories – where more than 50 Palestinians have been killed this month by Israeli security forces – and in war-ravaged Syria.

“The hard work of shaping that transition (in Syria) requires an global approach and a consistent approach”, Kerry said Friday.

Damascus views all the groups fighting it as terrorists.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has agreed to hold preliminary elections in the country, on the condition the move has the backing of the population.

The spokesman for Alwiyat Seif al-Sham, an FSA group operating in southern Syria, said: “Nothing of this sort happened on our part as FSA”.

Moscow has invited the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to coordinate their air campaigns, which target IS militants, with Russian Federation.

Washington has said it could tolerate Assad during a short transition period, but that he would then have to exit the political stage. “Because of those wide disparities, Kerry thinks it’s important to get everyone in the same room”. “Right now they have to get all of the stakeholder countries on board first, the ones that have an effect on Assad’s decision-making”.

“What we care about is Assad leaving, not turning this from a war against the regime to a war against terrorism”, Saoud, a former Syrian army officer who defected and now leads the rebel 13th Division group, told the AP.

Two rebel members, including a commander of a CIA-backed group, said representatives of the Russian government have reached out to them to arrange for meetings.

The USA has predicted that Russia will get bogged down in Syria, like the Soviet Union did in the 1980s, and suspect Russian President Vladimir Putin could be looking to use his increased influence on the ground to end Russia’s costly involvement there. Last week’s Vienna talks followed a visit to Moscow by Assad, where Putin hinted that Assad could be willing to agree to a political solution. “How can we talk to them while they are hitting us?” But it is extraordinarily fragile.