[With Russia actively joining the Syrian war, the position of Assad has evidently strengthened. That's a negative development from the point of view of the FSA.
Even then, at least some change appears to be in the offing.] http://www.wsj.com/articles/diplomats-meet-in-vienna-for-syria-talks-as-gap-appears-to-be-narrowing-over-assad-future-1446204142 WORLD Foreign Ministers Agree to Back U.N.-Led Diplomatic Process for Syria Government and Opposition U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov still disagree on future for Assad U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov share a word before the start of the Syria talks at a hotel in Vienna on Friday. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS By VALENTINA POP in Vienna and JAY SOLOMON in Washington Updated Oct. 30, 2015 8:54 p.m. ET The U.S. and a host of international powers agreed Friday to resume United Nations-backed peace talks on Syria, but with a recognition that President Bashar al-Assad will remain in power for the foreseeable future. The U.S. had once insisted Mr. Assad leave power as part of any political deal, but more recently has said he might be allowed to stay during a transition in power. On Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry said Mr. Assad should go at an unspecified time but that discord over when shouldn’t hinder talks, while Iranian and Russian officials stressed that only the Syrian people could decide on Mr. Assad’s future. The U.S. diplomat also acceded to Moscow and Tehran playing major roles in determining Syria’s future, a stance that might not be acceptable to Washington’s Arab allies. The agreement, reached on Friday after seven hours of discussions, is meant to advance talks on a new constitution and elections, a process now backed for the first time by regional and international powers, including Russia, U.S., Iran and Saudi Arabia. The joint statement concluding the talks didn’t explicitly mention Mr. Assad, saying Syria’s “state institutions will remain intact.” Mr. Assad isn’t excluded from the process of drafting a new constitution and organizing U.N.-supervised free elections leading to what the statement called “credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance.” The statement also didn’t call on the Assad regime to stop using barrel bombs against civilians, which has been a key Western demand. Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian of Iran tweeted after the meeting that “as a result of our efforts, they agreed not to include a timetable for departure of Assad in the final statement.” Speaking at a joint news conference after the round of talks ended, Mr. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said their countries remain at odds about Mr. Assad’s fate. But they said that shouldn’t stand in the way of stopping the war. “Make no mistake, the answer is not to be found in a military alliance with Assad, but in a broad diplomatic solution,” Mr. Kerry said. More than 200,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict and 14 million people forced to flee their homes, according to the U.N. The Vienna meeting included a tug of war between Western and Persian Gulf nations seeking to place a precise timeline on Mr. Assad’s departure and the Syrian president’s main backers, Russia and Iran, who sought to avoid any mention of him, according to a senior French official. Mr. Kerry proposed a calendar of from four to six months for Mr. Assad’s departure and 18 months to hold new elections, the official said, an idea that was quickly rejected by Russia and Iran. “Iran was doing everything possible not to have a text” agreed at the end of the meeting, the official said. With the question of Mr. Assad’s future pushed to the side for the moment, negotiators will focus over the next two weeks on who could be part of a new government in Syria. There will be a debate about whether other militants could be added to the U.N. list of terrorist groups operating in Syria, the French official said, since Russia insists that some of the Western-backed groups fighting Mr. Assad are terrorists. “We arrived at this question quickly when we spoke of a cease-fire,” the official said. Agreeing on a list of terrorist groups would help pave the way for an agreement on which other militant groups might be included in a new government, the official said. Russia in recent weeks has engaged in air raids in Syria targeting what they claim to be terrorist targets, but effectively supporting Mr. Assad’s forces. Mr. Lavrov said Russia’s intervention in Syria came at the request of the Syrian government and is aimed solely at fighting terrorism—a goal shared by all 19 countries and institutions that were parties to the Vienna talks. Mr. Lavrov said his country would push for broadening the U.N.’s list of terrorist organizations in Syria. At the Friday talks, the foreign ministers of rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran for the first time sat around the same table to talk about how to solve the Syrian conflict, where they back opposing forces. Their joint presence alone was deemed historic by European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini, who had pushed for Iran’s inclusion in a first round of talk last week in Vienna earlier but was opposed by Saudi Arabia. The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, charged with trying to start the political process, underlined the importance of getting the backing of regional players, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. “I met a lot of Syrian groups over the past months and they all told me the same thing: We are unable to come to any conclusion unless the international community and the region comes to some common understanding about a way forward,” Mr. de Mistura said. Previous U.N.-mediated efforts to bring peace to Syria have failed as the war became more brutal and complex. A six-point peace plan put forward in April 2012 by the then-U. N. special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan failed to achieve a cease-fire. Subsequent efforts by his successor, Lakhdar Brahimi, also faltered, largely over differences over Mr. Assad’s fate. RELATED VIDEO Eleven million people displaced, four million refugees, and a quarter of a million dead—all in the last four years. What’s happened to Syria’s people? WSJ’s Niki Blasina takes a look at the world’s largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. The current envoy, Mr. de Mistura also tried to broker peace launching a plan for a cease-fire in the northern city of Aleppo earlier this year. The plan was eventually rejected by rebels. The Vienna meeting came as at least 50 people were killed and 200 wounded in airstrikes and missile attacks by Syrian regime forces on a rebel-held town near Damascus. More than a dozen of what appeared to be high-precision guided missiles slammed into the main food market and surrounding residential neighborhoods in Douma, located about 10 miles from the Syrian capital, local medics, activists and residents said. —Matthew Dalton in Paris and Sam Dagher and Raja Abdulrahim in Beirut contributed to this article. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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