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JEDDAH/PARIS: France and Turkey plan to create a “diplomatic road map” for an end to the war in Syria, President Emmanuel Macron’s office said on Sunday.
Macron spoke by telephone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday, focusing on Turkey’s military offensive against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The French leader infuriated Turkish officials last week when he said France would have a “real problem” with the campaign if it turned out to be an invasion of northern Syria. Erdogan assured him that Ankara had no eye on Syrian territory.
“The two presidents agreed to work on a diplomatic road map for Syria in the coming weeks,” the Elysee Palace said on Sunday. “To that end, discussions between France and Turkey, which both hope for a political solution overseen by the UN, will increase in the coming days.”
Syrian opposition leaders also demanded on Sunday that the UN supervise the Syrian peace process, and they rejected the outcome of last week’s Russian-backed peace congress in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“We at the SNC (Syrian Negotiations Commission) are studying some sort of a road map or a practical guide for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 with concentration on the constitutional process and the electoral process,” opposition spokesman Yahya Al-Aridi told Arab News.
“We are looking forward to certain amendments that will facilitate the implementation of the resolution.”
Resolution 2254, passed in December 2015, demands that all parties cease attacks against civilian targets, urges all UN member states to support efforts to achieve a cease-fire and asks the UN to convene the parties to engage in formal negotiation.
The SNC restated their demand that any new constitution proposed for Syria should not allow President Bashar Assad to stay in power. Their concerns have grown after 1,400 delegates at the Sochi conference agreed to set up a committee to draft a constitution.
SNC chief negotiator Nasr Hariri rejected the committee and said several “internationally sanctioned war criminals” had taken part in the conference. Al-Aridi also said pro-regime militias, including those who had committed massacres in Syria, attended the Sochi congress.
Al-Aridi told Arab News that any constitutional committee should be established in Geneva by Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy on Syria, and should comprise only two negotiating parties — the SNC and the Syrian regime. He called on the UN to pressurize Russia to deliver on its commitments.
The Geneva process should be “the basis for implementing a political solution in Syria while the Astana process aimed to establish a cease-fire and therefore remove all obstacles hindering the negotiation process,” Hariri said.
The SNC said no constitutional or electoral process could be successful without allowing for a transitional period that provided the people of Syria with a suitable environment to freely express their opinions.
“All attention is now directed toward the next Geneva round to see whether the regime will seriously enter the negotiations process and respond to the political transition and the constitutional processes, or will remain intransigent and continue to refuse to implement international resolutions,” Hariri said.
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