Syrian opposition agrees on framework for negotiations with Assad

According to the agreement, the Syrian president and his aides must step down at the start of a transition period set out last month by top diplomats.

Saudi security forces stand guard outside a hotel in Riyadh where Syrian opposition groups held talks on December 10, 2015. Khalid Mohammed/AP Photo

RIYADH // Syrian political and armed opposition groups meeting in Riyadh have agreed on a framework for negotiations with president Bashar Al Assad, opposition sources said on Thursday.

According to the agreement, Mr Al Assad must step down at the start of a transition period set out last month by top diplomats.

“Participants have insisted that Bashar Al Assad and his aides quit power with the start of the transition period,” said a statement issued after two days of unprecedented talks between a range of armed and political opposition groups.

“The participants are ready to negotiate with representatives of the Syrian regime based on the Geneva 1 communique ... within a specific time frame that would be agreed on with the United Nations.”

The Geneva communique is a document agreed at a peace conference in 2012 that drew up baselines for a Syria peace deal including the formation of a transitional governing body with executive powers.

The opposition groups in Riyadh also called on the United Nations and international community “to force the Syrian regime to implement goodwill measures before the negotiation process begins”.

The measures include the ending of regime sieges on towns and districts to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, a halt to executions, the release of political detainees and the creation of conditions to allow for the return of refugees.

The regime should also end “the forced displacement” of citizens and the dropping of “barrel bombs on civilian gatherings,” it said.

Under the agreement, opposition groups have formed a “supreme committee for negotiations” based in Riyadh which will act as a reference for their negotiating team, whose members the body itself will choose.

The composition of the committee was not immediately clear.

Suhair Atassi, a member of the National Coalition, the main opposition grouping, said the agreement represented “a unified vision for the settlement process”.

Also on Thursday, a Kurdish-Arab coalition fighting ISIL in northern Syria announced the creation of a political wing.

Key Kurdish factions were excluded from the talks in Riyadh, with the opposition Syrian National Coalition saying the Kurds only fight against ISIL but not the regime.

The formation of the Syrian Democratic Council was agreed at a two-day conference in the northeastern town of Al Malikiyeh where participants also discussed the future of the country after more than four years of war.

“The participants agreed on the creation of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political branch of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” a statement issued at the end of the conference read.

The SDF, formed in October, groups the powerful Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) with smaller Arab and Christian militias in a coalition intended to take on ISIL.

Backed by Washington, it has taken a string of villages.

A powerful Syrian insurgent faction had pulled out of the Riyadh conference in protest at the role given to groups it said are close to the Syrian government.

Ahrar Al Sham, a group that operates mainly in northern Syria, said in a statement that it was also withdrawing because some of its comments and recommendations had been disregarded at the meeting.

Earlier, the US secretary of state John Kerry, speaking at a climate conference outside Paris, had described the talks in Riyadh as “very constructive”.

“I think everybody is moving in the direction that they want to rapidly get to a political process and get it underway under UN auspices. So we made progress but we have some tough issues to get over,” he said.

Mr Kerry said he had spoken to Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to organise the next Syria meeting, tentatively set for December 18 at the United Nations headquarters in New York. He added that while he was “working toward” the US meeting, the arrangements were “not locked in yet”.

A peace plan agreed last month by 20 nations meeting in Vienna set a January 1 deadline for the start of talks between Mr Al Assad’s government and opposition groups.Syrian oppoisiton

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Mr Al Jubeir said Mr Al Assad has two choices, “either to leave through negotiations” or be forcibly removed from power, arguing that the Syrian people would not accept any other outcomes. He said he hoped the various opposition factors could come up with a common vision for Syria.

Saudi Arabia has been a key backer of Sunni opposition blocs pushing for Mr Al Assad’s removal throughout the nearly five-year-old Syria conflict.

The largest bloc at the two-day meeting, with around 20 delegates, was the Western-backed opposition group known as the Syrian National Coalition. Also in attendance were representatives of the Syria-based National Coordination Body, an organisation sometimes accused by other opposition members of being too conciliatory toward Mr Al Assad’s government.

Also on Thursday, an ISIL finance chief was confirmed killed in an air raid.

Abu Saleh was killed in late November, US military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said, calling him “one of the most senior and experienced members” of the group’s financial network.

* Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Associated Press