Iran signaled on Friday it backed a six-month transition period
in Syria followed by elections to decide Bashar al-Assad's fate, a proposal
floated at peace talks as a concession but which the president's foes rejected
as a trick to keep him in power.
Sources who described the Iranian
proposal said it amounted to Assad's closest ally dropping its insistence on
him remaining in office.
But Assad's enemies say a new
election would keep him in power unless other steps were taken to remove him.
His government held an election as recently as last year, which he easily won.
His opponents have always rejected any proposal for a transition unless he is
removed.
Iranian officials attended
international peace talks on Syria for the first time on Friday in Vienna, a
month after the balance of power in the 4-year-old civil war shifted in Assad's
favor with Russia launching air strikes against his foes.
Iran appears to be adjusting its
stance in ways that could create more ground for compromise with Western
countries that are coming to accept Assad cannot be driven from power by force.
"Iran does not insist on
keeping Assad in power forever," Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Amir
Abdollahian, a member of Tehran's delegation at the Syria talks on Friday, was
quoted by Iranian media as saying.
A senior official from the Middle
East familiar with the Iranian position said that could go as far as ending support
for Assad after the transition period.
"Talks are all about
compromises and Iran is ready to make a compromise by accepting Assad remaining
for six months," the official told Reuters. "Of course, it will be up
to the Syrian people to decide about the country's fate."
Syrian opposition figures,
already bristling from having been excluded from Friday's talks about the fate
of their country, dismissed the reported Iranian proposal as a ruse.
"Who is mad enough to
believe that under these circumstances in Syria, anybody can hold
elections?" said George Sabra, a member of the Western-backed political
opposition, the exiled Syrian National Coalition, told Reuters. "Bashar
al-Assad and his regime is the root of the terrorism in Syria."
They say any fair vote is
impossible in wartime conditions in which nearly half of the country is
displaced.
"In the shadow of this
anarchy there will not be real elections, therefore we reject them
absolutely," said Ahmed al-Seoud, a fighter in the rebel 13th Division
which has been fighting in the western Hama province
Abu Ghaith al-Shami, a spokesman for the rebel Alwiyat
Seif al-Sham group which is fighting in the south, said Assad's participation
in an election was unthinkable: "The fate of Assad and all criminals
should be in court following the massacres committed by him and those with him,
towards the Syrian people."
NEW
UNDERTAKING
Nevertheless, a commitment from
Iran to a defined time limit for a transition could be viewed as a significant
new undertaking, potentially forming a basis for future diplomacy at a time
when Assad's position has been strengthened by Russia's decision to join the
war on his side.
A senior U.S. official and other
delegates said a new round of Syria peace talks could be held as soon as next
week.
All previous efforts to find a
diplomatic solution to Syria's civil war have collapsed over the insistence of
the United States, European powers, Arab states and Turkey that Assad agree to
leave power.
In the past, Iranian delegations
were excluded for refusing to sign up to U.N.-backed proposals that called for
a transition of power in Damascus. Tehran has long said it was not committed to
Assad as an individual, but that it was up to Syrians to decide his fate, a
position that amounted to an endorsement of election results that confirmed him
in office.
Russia's participation in the
conflict on Assad's behalf creates a new incentive for a diplomatic push to end
a war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million
people from their homes. Western countries that have called for Assad's removal
from power appear to have accepted that he cannot be forced out on the
battlefield.
In the latest violence from the
battlefield, a local rescue group operating in rebel-held areas said more than 45
people were killed by a government missile strike on a marketplace in a town
near Damascus.
The group, Syrian Civil Defence,
posted a picture on its Facebook page of about a dozen bloodied bodies laid on
the ground. It linked to a video showing people tending to survivors in a
chaotic scene of blackened rubble and fire.
"Utterly heinous that while
world leaders meet for peace in Vienna, attack(s) against civilians continue in
Syria," the group said on Twitter.
HOPE
FOR COMPROMISE
The United States has said it is
looking for signs of compromise from Tehran and Moscow at Friday's conference,
defending its decision to talk directly to Iran about the Syrian conflict for
the first time.
The conference will also be
attended by European powers, Turkey and Iran's arch enemy in the region, Saudi
Arabia.
"I am hopeful that we can
find a way forward," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters
shortly before the meeting began on Friday morning. "It is very
difficult."
Iranian and Russian officials
have repeatedly said the priority for Syria should be the defeat of Islamic
State militants, who have seized large areas of Syria and Iraq.
The divide between Assad's
allies and Western and Arab nations seeking his ouster has deepened since
Moscow began air strikes against opposition forces in Syria a month ago.
Russia says it is bombing
Islamic State, but most of its air strikes have hit other groups opposed to
Assad, including many that are supported by Washington's allies.
The United States is leading its
own bombing campaign against Islamic State, the world's most violent jihadist
group, but says Assad's presence makes the situation worse. Washington has said
it could tolerate Assad during a short transition period, but that he would
then have to exit the political stage.
Assad's latest seven-year
presidential term runs until 2021. He is believed to control a quarter or less
of Syrian territory, but that includes the main cities of Western Syria which
are home to the bulk of people still inside the country.
Assad's office said on Tuesday
political initiatives could not work in Syria before terrorism had been wiped
out, his long-held position.
