Saturday, December 26, 2015

UN Security Council reaches 'milestone' Syria agreement


BY FRANKLIN SIMMONS


IN RESEARCH

— DEC 27, 2015




Foreign ministers from 17 countries, gathering in NY on Friday before the council's session, also failed to bridge differences including which opposition factions should be branded "terrorists".

The Security Council met Friday after the latest round of talks by the International Syria Support Group, which gathered in NY to renew its push for peace.

The resolution calls the transition Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, stressing that the "Syrian people will decide the future of Syria".

The idea is that Mr Assad's regime will open talks with rebel groups next month with the aim of forming a "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian" government within six months.

UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution on Syria at a meeting held at the level of foreign ministers attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura.

The deputy minister gave warning there were "severe differences over a list of terrorist groups". "Now I think that there will be follow-up meetings", said Nasser Judeh, adding that countries had submitted between 10 and 20 names each.

US President Barack Obama stressed on supporting the allies in the region and stopping the spread of terrorism, which can not happen without political process in Syria, Kerry said.

Even as the UN Security Council was voting on a resolution touted as a road to peace in Syria, developments on the Syrian-Turkish border, long the conduit for ISIS and other Islamist militias as well as for arms and recruits, threatened to turn the conflict into the flashpoint for a global conflagration.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two most important issues are launching political negotiations among Syrian parties and implementing a U.N.-monitored cease-fire. "Without peace talks, the cease-fire can not be sustained".

He said that IS is on the run, but will continue to be unsafe for some time.




It also backed a timeline previously agreed in Vienna for talks between the government on a unity government and opposition, and eventual elections.

A group of countries will join Jordan in developing that list, Kerry told reporters. Najib Ghadbian estimated that a month of preparation is needed. "We see how efficiently our pilots and intelligence agents coordinate their efforts with various kinds of forces - the army, navy and aviation, how they use the most modern weapons", Putin was quoted saying by Russian news agencies, according to Reuters UK.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has made a rare public appearance with a pre-Christmas visit to a church in an eastern suburb ofDamascus often targeted by rebel artillery.

Russian Federation has been conducting airstrikes in Syria since September 30. All of it within 18 months.

That designation would exclude a group from the political process while implicitly endorsing it as a target for the separate campaigns of airstrikes by Russian Federation and a US-led coalition. One of the killed women was pregnant, the observatory said.


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