GENEVA — An international conference on Saturday accepted a U.N.-brokered peace plan that calls for the creation of a transitional government in Syria, but at Russia’s insistence the compromise agreement left the door open to Syria’s president being part of it.
The U.S. backed away from insisting that the plan should explicitly call for President Bashar Assad to have no role in a new Syrian government, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its longtime ally to end the violent crackdown that the opposition says has claimed more than 14,000 lives.
Even with Russia’s most explicit statement of support yet for a political transition in Syria, it is far from certain that the plan will have any real effect. A key phrase in the agreement requires that the transitional governing body “shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent,” effectively giving the present government and the opposition veto power over each other.
Syrian opposition figures immediately rejected any notion of sharing in a transition with Assad, though the agreement also requires security force chiefs and services to have the confidence of the people. Assad’s government had no reaction, but Assad has repeatedly said his government has a responsibility to eliminate terrorists and will not accept any non-Syrian model of governance.
Clinton: Assad must go
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton insisted on Saturday that Assad would still have to go, saying it is “incumbent on Russia and China to show Assad the writing on the wall” and help force his departure.”
“There is a credible alternative to the Assad regime,” she said. “What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power.”
Kofi Annan was appointed the special envoy in February. In March, he submitted a six-point peace plan that he said the Assad regime accepted. It led to the April 12 cease-fire agreement that failed to hold.
Russia had refused to back a provision that would call for Assad to step aside, insisting that outsiders cannot order a political solution for Syria and accusing the West of ignoring the darker side of the Syrian opposition. The opposition has made clear it would not take part in a government in which Assad still held power.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined that the plan does not require Assad’s ouster, saying there is “no attempt in the document to impose on the Syrian people any type of transitional process.”
Lavrov accused armed opposition groups in Syria of provoking the government to use force disproportionately. “We cannot say that the regime should simply withdraw its heavy artillery that it is shooting at armed citizens,” he said, referring to one of the conditions that the U.N. had set for sending truce monitors to Syria. “Certain armed groups and those who sponsor them are always trying to provoke the spiraling violence.”
Call to end violence
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called for all sides to end to the violence “without attaching any conditions,” but said that no one from the outside can make any legitimate decisions for the Syrian people.
More than a year into the uprising, Syria’s opposition is struggling to overcome infighting and inexperience, preventing the movement from gaining the traction it needs to instill confidence in its ability to govern.
The U.N. plan calls for establishing a transitional government of national unity, with full executive powers, which could include members of Assad’s government and the opposition and other groups. It would oversee the drafting of a constitution and elections.
Annan said after the Geneva talks that “it is for the people of Syria to come to a political agreement.”
“I will doubt that the Syrians who have fought so hard to have independence … will select people with blood on their hands to lead them,” he said.
The envoy had earlier warned the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — that if they fail to act at the talks hosted by the United Nations at its European headquarters in Geneva, they face an international crisis of “grave severity” that could spark violence across the region.
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Dozens die in assault• BEIRUT — Syrian troops flushed out rebels from a Damascus suburb Saturday, regaining control of a key area just outside the capital after a 10-day assault that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded and caused a major humanitarian crisis.
The offensive against Douma forced residents and fighters to flee, leaving a trail of destruction and bodies in the streets, activists said.
In Zamalka, another suburb of Damascus, activists said more than 30 people were killed and many others wounded Saturday when a mortar shell struck a car that exploded as a funeral procession was taking place.
The exact circumstances were not clear. It was not known who fired the mortar.
The sprawling suburb of Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, has been a hotbed of dissent against the Assad regime since the start of the uprising in March 2011. Securing control of the suburb for a sustained period would be a significant triumph for the regime.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and local activist Mohammed Saeed said regime forces recaptured Douma late Friday. The latest offensive was the worst of several assaults on the area, the Observatory said.
The Associated Press
