The United States, Russia, Iran and more than a dozen other nations agreed Friday, October 30 to launch a new peace effort involving Syria's government and opposition groups, but carefully avoided any determination on when President Bashar al-Assad might leave power, the Associated Press reports.
There was no guarantee that either Assad or the vast array of rebel groups fighting against him would join the push for peace.
Although details were vague, the approach has clear differences with previous such efforts. Chief among them: The U.S. and allies including Saudi Arabia softened calls for Assad's quick removal from power. Russia and Iran didn't rule out his eventual departure.
The new diplomatic push coincided with a U.S. announcement that a small number of American special operations forces will be sent to northern Syria to work with local ground forces in the fight against Islamic State militants. It would mark the first time American troops would be deployed openly on the ground in the country.
Kerry said the U.S. was intensifying a "two-pronged" effort. Diplomatically, it wants to see peace between the government and rebels as quickly as possible. Militarily, it is determined to defeat the Islamic State.
Kerry said the foreign ministers present in Austria's capital all vowed to maintain Syria's institutions, to protect the rights of all its citizens, to assure humanitarian access and to strive to defeat the Islamic State. He said the process should lead to a new constitution for Syria and internationally supervised elections, as well as an end to violence between Assad's military and rebels so that the world community can focus on the counterterrorism challenge.
But no agreement was reached on Assad, whose future lies at the center of the conflict.
No one mentioned concrete timetables — even for when Syrian government and opposition representatives might be pulled into the process.
