Russia to propose Syrians launch 18-month reform process — document

Russia wants the Syrian government and opposition to agree on launching a constitutional reform process of up to 18 months, followed by early presidential elections, a draft document obtained by Reuters showed on Tuesday.

The eight-point proposal, drawn up by Moscow before international talks on Syria this week, does not rule out President Bashar Al Assad's participation in the elections — something his foes say is impossible if there is to be peace.

"[The] popularly elected president of Syria will have the functions of commander-in-chief of the armed forces, control of special services and foreign policy," the document said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow had come up with "different ideas and proposals", although he insisted they did not constitute a solid plan.

The document said the Syrian sides should agree on such steps at a future conference to be organised by the United Nations and added that the reform process would not be chaired by Assad, but by a candidate agreed by all sides.

Russia and Iran have been Assad's top allies during Syria's nearly five-year war. The United States, its Gulf allies and Turkey have said he must leave power for there to be peace.

Moscow has stepped up its diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. At a first round of talks in Vienna late last month, it said it wanted opposition groups to participate in future discussions and exchanged a list of names with Saudi Arabia.

Tass news agency quoted Bogdanov as denying Moscow had produced a formal document. "We just have different ideas and proposals. It is not a solid plan or Russian initiative," he said.

The Western stand on Assad means that the Russian proposals are likely to run into stiff opposition.

"How can we bring peace to a country that went through a vicious civil war in which 250-300,000 people died without removing the cause of that civil war?" asked British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Monday.

“We do not believe that it is going to be possible to bring the opposition groups into the political process and have an effective ceasefire, unless we have a clear point at which President Assad will depart,” he told reporters at the United Nations.

Assad was overwhelmingly elected to a new seven-year term in June 2014 but his opponents dismissed the vote as a sham. The Syrian parliament’s four-year term is due to expire next May.

The document said the Syrian opposition which takes part in the political process must form a “united delegation” and be agreed beforehand.

“[They should] share the goals of preventing terrorists from coming to power in Syria and of ensuring sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Syria, as well as [the] secular and democratic character of the state.”

Western diplomats said it would be difficult for countries opposed to Assad to agree on the draft Russian proposal.

“The document does not suit a lot of people,” one Western diplomat said, adding that those who disagreed with Russia’s approach were working to make sure the text would not be the basis of the talks.

The document also proposed agreeing on a list of terrorist groups. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Tuesday that Moscow wanted to see such an agreement at the Vienna talks.

The text also said that for a Syrian ceasefire, “operations against ISIL [Daesh] and other terrorist groups must be excluded”.

A second Western diplomat said Moscow wanted to use this definition to cover all insurgent groups, not just jihadists such as Daesh and Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front. “Russia wants this list to include all the groups that fight anything else except Daesh, so that means groups against the regime,” the diplomat said.