Beirut: Both official Syrian media and an opposition group demonstrated rare agreement on Sunday in slamming as a failure the outcome of a world powers deal on a transition for the violence-ridden country.
The Geneva meeting on Syria has ‘‘failed,’’ trumpeted Al-Baath, the newspaper of the ruling Baath party, after world powers agreed on the principles for a transition plan. Their plan was for a transition that could include current regime members, although the West did not see any role for President Bashar al-Assad in a new unity government. Both Russia and China, which have twice blocked UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, insisted that Syrians themselves must decide how the transition should be carried out rather than allow others to dictate their fate. However, both Moscow and Beijing signed up to the deal. ‘‘The agreement of the task force on Syria in Geneva on Saturday resembles an enlarged meeting of the UN Security Council where the positions of participants remained the same,’’ Al-Baath said.
The Local Coordination Committees group called the transition accord ‘‘just one version, different in form only, of the demands of Russian leaders allied to the Assad regime and who cover it militarily and politically in the face of international pressure’’. Al-Baath said only the Syrians themselves can solve the crisis. ‘‘No resolution of the crisis will succeed if it is not based on the opinion of the Syrian people and the source of law,’’ it wrote in an editorial. ‘‘The Syrians are capable of initiating a national dialogue in which there is no room for neighbouring countries, especially those that incite the killing of Syrians.’’ Pro-government daily Al-Watan welcomed that the final statement of the Geneva meeting did not refer to a post-crisis scenario similar to Yemen, indicating a negotiated departure of Assad, or recommend military intervention as in Libya. ‘‘The statement made no mention of the Yemeni and Libyan scenarios, recently propagated by Arab and Western media, which has disappointed the Syrian opposition abroad,’’ it said. The authorities have yet to respond formally to the Geneva agreement. (AFP)
