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Bashar al-Assad's fate left open after Syria crisis talks Bashar al-Assad's fate left open after Syria crisis talks
(40 minutes later)
International powers have agreed that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the bloodshed there but left open the question of what part President Bashar al-Assad might play in the process. A UN crisis meeting in Geneva on the escalating conflict in Syria has agreed the terms for a transitional government to oversee the end of violence in the country.
Peace envoy Kofi Annan said after talks in Geneva that the government should include members of Assad's administration and the Syrian opposition to pave the way for free elections. A communique called for "clear and irreversible steps" following a fixed time frame, but is certain to come as a bitter disappointment to opposition groups fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
"It is for the people to come to a political agreement but time is running out," Annan said in concluding remarks. The announcement stated that present members of the government could be included in the new body – controversially leaving unresolved the key question of whether Assad could be part of that transitional government.
"We need rapid steps to reach agreement. The conflict must be resolved through peaceful dialogue and negotiations." The Geneva talks had been billed as a last-ditch effort to halt the worsening violence in Syria, but hit obstacles as Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, opposed western and Arab insistence that he must quit. Special envoy Kofi Annan said he hoped to see concrete results towards a settlement within a year and insisted "it is for the people of Syria to come to a political agreement".
The final communique said the transitional government "could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent". Addressing the meeting earlier, both US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and British foreign secretary William Hague had attempted to insist that Assad and his closest allies had no place in the transitional process.
But in a victory for Russian diplomacy, it omitted language contained in a previous draft which explicitly said it "would exclude from government those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardise stability and reconciliation". The meeting broke up amid reports of fresh violence in Syria, including claims that government forces had overrun the city of Douma, which has been under siege for several weeks.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said he was "delighted" with the result as it meant no foreign solution was being imposed on Syria. Clinton said that the conditions set out in the statement offered the best chance of a transition to a democratic post-Assad period, including free elections. She added that the US would meet with Syria's divided opposition figures in Cairo next week to try to forge unity between them in line with the Annan principles.
But US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said it sent a clear message to Assad that he must step down. Asked if "people with blood on their hands" would be included, Annan said at a press conference that he thought it unlikely that those accused of abuses would be selected by the Syrian people to represent them.
"Assad will still have to go," Clinton told a news conference after the meeting ended. Russia had earlier refused to back a provision that would call for Assad to step down to make way for a unity government. The final UN communique, which followed a day of bitter and often deadlocked negotiations, appeared to preserve the Moscow "red line" – that the Syrian people should have ownership of the transition process and it should not be imposed from outside.
"What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power." Russia, with the backing of China, has been seen by western powers as one of the main stumbling blocks in the efforts to bring to an end a conflict that has claimed more than 15,000 lives. According to western diplomatic sources, the sticking point during talks has been a paragraph in the text interpreted by the US and the UK as suggesting that Assad would need to step down ahead of the transition.
Annan called the meeting to salvage a peace plan that has largely been ignored by the Assad government. He stressed that the transition must be led by Syrians and meet their legitimate aspirations. Hopes had been raised in recent days that the UN conference was the best opportunity to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, thus averting a region-wide war and "humanitarian catastrophe", but overnight the US and Russia remained divided over key issues.
"No one should be in any doubt as to the extreme dangers posed by the conflict – to Syrians, to the region, and to the world," he said in opening remarks. The emergency meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of the security council's permanent five members, as well as representatives of the EU and Arab states, including Syria's neighbour Iraq.
His plan for a negotiated solution to the 16-month-old conflict is the only one on the table and its failure would doom Syria to even more violence. More than 10,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising broke out and the past few weeks have been among the bloodiest. Addressing the delegates, Annan warned that the war in Syria risked spilling over into a wider regional conflict of "grave severity". However, at times during the day that seemed a moot point as US officials accused Russia of "stonewalling" and raised the prospect that the talks might fail.
Highlighting the deteriorating situation on the ground, Syrian government forces pushed their way into Douma on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday after weeks of siege and shelling. Fleeing residents spoke of corpses lying in the streets. "The Russians have set out a series of objections … the Russians are stonewalling quite a bit," a western diplomat said as the talks paused for lunch. "A redraft of the text is looking likely," she said, referring to Annan's draft proposal.
The army also attacked pro-opposition areas in Deir al-Zor, Homs, Idlib and the outskirts of Damascus, opposition activists said. Admonishing the foreign powers present, Annan said the crisis should never have reached this point. "Either unite to secure your common interests or divide and surely fail in your own individual way," he said. "Without your unity, your common resolve and your action now … nobody can win and everyone will lose in some way."
The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said Assad and his close associates could not lead any transition. Accountability for war crimes must be part of such a process, he added in his speech to the meeting. Speaking before the announcement, Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the Syrian National Council, a coalition of Syrian opposition groups in Turkey, dismissed any deal that included the regime.
Hague called for the UN security council to start drafting a resolution next week setting out sanctions against Syria, a move that he noted put him at odds with Russia. "Ultimately, we want to stop the bloodshed in Syria. If that comes through political dialogue, we are willing to do that," he said.
The foreign ministers of the council's five permanent members – Russia, the United States, China, France and Britain – all attended along with Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. "We are not willing to negotiate [with] Mr Assad and those who have murdered Syrians. We are not going to negotiate unless they leave Syria."
Notably uninvited were Iran, Syria's closest regional ally, and Saudi Arabia, a foe of both Damascus and Tehran and leading backer of the rebel forces opposing Assad. Nor was anyone from the Syrian government or opposition represented.