NEW YORK—Senior international envoys began gathering in New York on Thursday to seek UN backing for an ambitious US and Russian plan to seek a negotiated ceasefire in Syria’s brutal civil war.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has already traveled to Moscow this week to assure Bashar al-Assad’s key Russian ally that Washington is not seeking “regime change” in Syria.
On Thursday, Kerry met Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir at a New York hotel to reassure Assad’s most implacable foe that the United States is not going soft on the Syrian strongman.
Kerry’s high-stakes diplomatic balancing act aims to keep both Moscow and Riyadh on board as the 17-nation International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) struggles to cobble together peace talks.
Washington and UN Syrian envoy Staffan de Mistura want Assad’s regime and the armed groups ranged against him to send delegates to peace talks some time on or after January 1.
If a ceasefire can be reached in Syria’s four-and-a-half-year-old civil war, then Syrian troops, Russia and a US-led coalition can focus their fire on the hard-line jihadist Islamic State group.
Under a deal struck last month in Vienna, government and rebel negotiators would have six months to form a transitional government and 18 months to organize national elections.
But several questions still hang over the process.
Will Assad and his foreign backers Russia and Iran agree to sit down with rebel groups they routinely denounce as “terrorists”?
And, will the rebels and their foreign backers countenance talks with a regime that has slaughtered thousands of its own citizens with barrel bombs and poison gas?
On Friday, international envoys including in particular Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov want to hear from Saudi Arabia how its efforts to mediate a rebel coalition are progressing.
US State Department spokesman John Kirby said Jordan would give an update on its role in the process drawing up a list of which “terrorist” groups should be blacklisted from talks.
Even if a ceasefire is possible, who would monitor it? And who would lead the fight against the IS group and others, such as Al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front, left outside the peace process?
To address these and other questions, the International Syrian Support Group will meet at US invitation on Friday morning at a New York hotel to try to narrow their disagreements.
Diplomats will then travel the short distance to the United Nations to seek, and likely obtain, approval of the UN Security Council for the process.