Global Powers Call for Political Transition in Syria

Russia Blocks Assad's Exclusion

World and regional powers today agreed to support a watered-down version of a plan put forward by Special Envoy Kofi Annan to promote a political transition in Syria. The agreement reached in Geneva did not include a specific call for Bashar al-Assad to step down as president, a move regarded as critical for the transition plan to success but firmly opposed by Russia. 

Annan insisted, however, that the people of Syria would not select “people with blood on the hands” to lead them during the transition. But he did not explain how he could pull off forming a transitional national unity government without Assad’s presence and without the firm support of all five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Today’s meeting of the so-called "Syria Action Group" included foreign ministers from all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey and officials from the EU and the Arab League.