BEIRUT // Members of the Syrian opposition on Wednesday rejected a Russian proposal to end the Syrian conflict that calls for the creation of a new constitution within 18 months and early presidential elections.
The Russian plan, however, does not bar president Bashar Al Assad from running, or include his removal during a transitional period.
The eight-point document, which comes ahead of international peace talks in Vienna on Saturday, also calls for concerted international efforts against ISIL and “other terrorist groups”. But it is the removal of Mr Al Assad from power that remains a key, unflinching demand of both members of the Syrian opposition and countries such as the Arabian Gulf states, the United States, and Turkey.
“The Syrian people have never accepted the dictatorship of Assad and they will not accept that when it is reintroduced or reformulated in another way,” said Monzer Akbik, a member of the western-backed Syrian National Coalition.
Western diplomats also dismissed the Russian plan, which Moscow presented to them nearly two weeks ago but was only leaked on Tuesday, because it does not clarify the fate of Mr Al Assad.
“We are aware of the Russian proposals,” said Britain’s UN envoy, Matthew Rycroft. “The eight-point plan itself is not central to the discussions in Vienna but Russia is.”
One UN Security Council diplomat, meanwhile, described the Russian proposal as “back of the envelope stuff” and said it was “not the answer”.
The Russian document calls for a constitutional reform process of up to 18 months “to guarantee sustainable security and fair balance of interests, rights and obligations of all ethnic and confessional groups in structures of powers and state institutions”.
A constitutional commission designed to “embrace the entire spectrum of the Syrian society, including domestic and outside opposition” would be formed.
Once a new constitution is ready, it would then be subject to a popular referendum.
Presidential elections are currently slated for 2021 and parliamentary elections are set for the coming spring, but the Russian plan would have both elections take place simultaneously, immediately following the approval of the constitution.
The document does not say that Mr Al Assad cannot run for president again and does not explicitly bar him from being part of the transition process. It only stipulates that he cannot head the constitutional commission and that the committee’s leader will be agreed upon by its members.
Under the plan, the first step toward a new constitution and new presidential and parliamentary elections would be the launching of talks between the Syrian government and “a united delegation of the opposition groups” in accordance with the June 2012 Geneva communique agreed upon by international powers to establish a transitional government in Syria.
The plan adds that the members making up the opposition delegation will have to be agreed upon beforehand and they will have to “share the goals of preventing terrorists from coming to power in Syria and of ensuring sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Syria, as well as the secular and democratic character of the state”.
A European diplomat posted in Beirut said on Wednesday that the upcoming Vienna talks will aim to draw up an opposition delegation.
“Each country will be able to submit names which will then have to be reduced to between 20 and 25 people to be divided into two commissions, one on political reforms and the other on security,” the source said.
They added that an international preparatory commission is to begin work from Thursday on pulling together the opposition lists, as well as on deciding which rebel groups in Syria are to be classified as “terrorist” organisations.
The distinction has been a source of contention between Mr Al Assad’s supporters, including Russia and Iran, and opposition backers in the West and Arab world.
Since beginning its bombing campaign on September 30, Moscow has primarily bombed rebels fighting the Syrian government, despite defending its intervention as a measure to confront ISIL and other extremist groups. Russia has consistently claimed strikes against ISIL in areas where the group is understood to have no presence. And when striking rebel groups, Russia’s ministry of defence simply defends its actions as aimed at “terrorists”.
Under the Russian proposal, a list of non-ISIL terrorist groups would be created and on Tuesday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said “there is a need to agree on a list of terrorist organisations, so that no one has doubts, hesitations about the affiliation of one or another armed group,” according to the state-owned Sputnik news agency.
But even if international actors are able to agree on a list of “terrorist” or “extremist” groups that will be targeted militarily and excluded from the transition process, on the battlefields away from the negotiation tables things are much messier. A number of moderate Free Syrian Army groups – who will demand a role in any transition – fight alongside and cooperate with Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra and other organisations considered to be extremist.
Saturday’s peace talks are a continuation of the October 30 dialogue that for the first time brought together all of the states seen as major power brokers in Syria’s conflict: the US, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Gulf Arab nations.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday, however, that his country had still not decided whether it will attend the talks, Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen television station reported.
According to the report, Tehran said its participation depended on Washington’s “answers regarding some unilateral actions taken by some of the sides attending the talks”.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse