Saudi Arabia says no common position on Assad’s fate after Vienna meeting

Putin’s military intervention in Syria, Russia’s largest outside the former Soviet Union in decades, is posing a direct challenge to American power in the Middle East. The US decried Putin’s “red-carpet welcome for Assad”, which White House spokesman Eric Schultz said was at odds with Russia’s stated goal of seeking a political change.

The talks – to include the EU’s foreign policy chief and United Nations head Ban Ki-moon via video-link – are part of a flurry of diplomatic activity seeking to end weeks of violence that has raised fears of a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Russian Federation claims to be targeting Islamist extremists who are fighting for Islamic State (IS), but the suspicion in the West is that its bombing campaign is really aimed at bolstering Assad’s position and its own influence in the country.

Earlier this year, officials in Moscow expressed concerns by the rise of the Islamic State group in Syria due to a surge in Russian citizens fighting with the Islamic State group.

“This foresees the start of full-scale talks between representatives of the Syrian government and the full spectrum of the Syrian opposition, both domestic and external – with the support of outside players”. Unlike other parts of Syria, it has remained firmly under government control and has largely been spared destruction that most of the country has suffered in the civil war that began in 2011.

Since late September, Russian Federation has been carrying out bombings against the ISIL terrorist group in Syria, after Russia’s parliament granted President Putin authorization to deploy the country’s air force overseas.

“This meeting is not meant to suggest that there are just four parties here; there aren’t”, Mr. Kerry said on Thursday.

Kerry also said all the countries with an interest in Syria, including Iran and Russian Federation, agree on what the result should be: a unified, secular and pluralistic Syria governed with the consent of its people.

Lavrov shook hands with Kerry as they sat down at a Vienna hotel for a crunch meeting that will then see the duo joined by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Turkey’s Feridun Sinirlioglu.

“The issue is, can we get to a political process during which time the future devolution and allocation of power in Syria is properly allocated by the people of Syria?” And that’s what we’re working towards. “So my hope is that these talks can begin a process that could open up a greater discussion”, he added.

While the scope of the coordination was not clear, it appears to outstrip the limited understandings Russian Federation has with Israel and the United States to avoid accidental air collisions over Syria. “We all know that ultimately the first steps into political solutions depend on whether Washington and Moscow find bridges towards each other”, he said. Russian Federation is keen to bring Iran into the talks, but Saudi Arabia is opposed.

Russian, US, Saudi Arabian and Turkish foreign ministers discussed specific ideas on the situation in Syria during their meeting in Vienna, and made a decision to maintain contacts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

But speaking at a political conference in Sochi on Friday, Putin accused Western governments of double standards in its choice of groups to work with.