While media reports talk about a new round of talks between the Russians and the Americans over Syria, a senior member of the opposition says that “Bashar’s departure is the essential demand of the Syrian revolution.”
Al-Hareth al-Nabhan told Asharq al Awsat, however, that “there will be no meaning for his (Assad’s) immunity in Syria after his departure.”
Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Masood Khan, the UNSC President for this month, told a news conference that “a meeting will take place soon between Brahimi and the Russians and the Americans.”
The president of the U.N. Security Council said Thursday there are important developments in efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the 21-month war in Syria and there could be another U.S.-Russia meeting with international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi next week.
In the meantime, a senior member of the Syrian Coalition, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Asharq al-Awsat that Cairo is playing a role in marketing a Russian plan that proposes Assad’s departure with immunity from international persecution. The source said that there is an American-Russian understanding about this plan.
However, the source added that “any solution is linked to the Syrian internal situation, and we will not accept any pressures that are imposed on the opposition even it they were a result of international balances.”
Al-Nabhan, on the other hand, said that the Egyptian efforts are welcomed, and that any solution “cannot be reached at the account of the Syrian revolution’s demands, which Egypt will never touch.”
......
