Iran backs 6-month Syria ‘transition’

Iran signalled on Friday that it favoured a six-month “transition” period in Syria followed by elections to decide the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, an apparent concession ahead of the first peace conference Tehran was permitted to attend.

Although sources who described the proposal said it amounted to Tehran dropping its insistence on Mr Assad remaining in power, it was not immediately clear whether it would actually include steps that would remove him.

Major powers sought Friday to overcome deep divisions over the Syrian war, with key regime backers Russia and Iran resisting Western and Saudi pressure to force President Assad from power.

Top diplomats from 17 countries, as well as the United Nations and the European Union, gathered in Vienna for talks bringing together all the main outside players in the four-year-old Syrian crisis for the first time.

Mr Assad’s government held an election as recently as 2014, which he easily won. His opponents have always rejected any proposal for a transition unless he is removed from power and barred from standing in any election that followed.

Nevertheless, a commitment to a defined time limit for a transition would amount to an important new undertaking by Mr Assad’s closest ally, providing a potential basis for future diplomacy at a time when Mr Assad’s position has been strengthened by Russia’s decision to join the war on his side.

“Iran does not insist on keeping Mr Assad in power forever,” Iranian deputy foreign minister Amir Abdollahian, a member of Tehran’s delegation at the Syria talks on Friday, was quoted by Iranian media as saying.

A senior official from West Asia familiar with the Iranian position said that could go as far as ending support for Mr Assad after the transition period.“Talks are all about compromises and Iran is ready to make a compromise by accepting Mr Assad remaining for six months,” the official said. “Of course, it will be up to the Syrian people to decide about the country’s fate.”

The meeting came as US officials said that the United States will deploy “fewer than 50” special operations forces to northern Syria in an advisory role.