For the first time since the nearly 5-year-old Syrian civil war began, world powers agreed on Friday at the United Nations Security Council to embrace a plan for a cease-fire and a peace process that holds the distant prospect of ending the conflict.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the Security Council reflected a monthslong effort by US and Russian officials, who have long been at odds over the future of Syria, to find common national interests to stop the killing, even if they cannot yet agree on Syria's ultimate future.
But there remain sharp disagreements to be reconciled between the American and Russian positions, and huge uncertainty about what the plan will mean on the ground.
A dizzying array of armed forces have left Syria in ruins, killed 250,000 and driven 4 million refugees out of the country, threatening to destabilise the nations where they are seeking new homes.
Time to stop the killing
"This council is sending a clear message to all concerned that the time is now to stop the killing in Syria and lay the groundwork for a government" that can hold the country together, US secretary of state John Kerry said at the Security Council.
Later on Friday, he added: “No one is sitting here today suggesting to anybody that the road ahead is a gilded path. It is complicated. It will remain complicated. But this at least demands that the parties come to the table.”
The resolution makes no mention of whether Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, would be able to run in new elections, which it says must be held within 18 months of the beginning of political talks. That process will begin sometime in January at the earliest, Mr Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, conceded. Privately, officials believe it may take significantly longer.
US and Russian gap
The remaining gap between the Russian and American sides became obvious at the very end of a news conference Friday evening that involved Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov. Mr Kerry noted that 80 per cent of Russian airstrikes were hitting opposition groups fighting Mr Assad, not the forces of the Islamic State extremist group. Mr Lavrov shot back that for 2 1/2 months, Russia had asked the United States to coordinate military operations.
Still, the resolution, adopted with a 15-0 vote, gives the Security Council's imprimatur to a possible political solution for the first time. However, even as it signals a narrowing of the diplomatic gap between Washington and Moscow, it remains uncertain whether they will be able to cool the tempers of regional rivals, chiefly, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Even trickier is how to translate the delicate consensus achieved on paper in New York into real change on the ground.
On paper, the resolution is striking for its ambition. It places the political process to decide Mr Assad's future under UN auspices, making it far harder for Mr Assad to control the vote, and specifically requires that all Syrians, "including members of the diaspora," be allowed to participate in the vote. That language was created in Vienna in November by Mr Kerry, who is betting that if Syrians around the world can participate in the vote, Mr Assad will not be able to win.
Assad discussion blocked
But the Russians and the Iranians have blocked any explicit discussion of whether Mr Assad, who has depended on Moscow and Tehran for critical military and financial support, can try to stay in office. Showing one of the complications that lie ahead, Lavrov argued after the vote that there should be no move for regime change. He cited Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Gadafy's Libya as examples where US intervention led to chaos.
“We should try avoiding the mistakes we have made,” he said at a news conference alongside Mr Kerry. “Only the Syrian people are going to decide their own future. That also covers the future of the Syrian president.”
Missing from the talks so far has been the man at the centre of the storm: Assad, whose barrel bombs, chemical weapons and vicious tactics have so embittered a huge segment of his own population that his critics insist he can no longer rule the country. But he reacted to the prospect of a Security Council resolution with sarcasm. “I was packing my luggage; I had to leave,” he told a Dutch television station on Thursday. “Now I can stay.”
The Security Council session followed a meeting in New York earlier in the day of top diplomats from more than a dozen countries with stakes in the conflict. They included the five permanent members of the council, along with the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the European Union.
The resolution abides by an accord known as the Geneva Communiqué, reached three years ago and considered critical by the Western powers, that proposes a transitional government with full executive powers.
Mr Kerry told reporters after the council meeting that steps would have to be taken to form a transitional government within six months. He sharply disputed the notion that the agreement deferred a decision on Mr Assad’s fate, saying it put a time frame on what needs to happen next. “This is not being kicked down the road; it’s actually being timed out,” he said.
New York Times