DAMASCUS, Syria -- A Syrian legislator on Sunday praised parts of an international plan for ending Syria's conflict, saying elements of it match the goals of President Bashar Assad's government, even as an opposition figure said all regional and world powers appear to be convinced that Assad must go.
Lawmaker Omar Ossi, who leads parliament's national reconciliation committee, said the plan has many points that "run in harmony" with Assad's position that combating "terrorism" should be a priority. Ossi called the plan "a victory for Syrian policy and diplomacy."
The 17-nation agreement exceeded some expectations for the meeting of key players in Syria's conflict, after multiple attacks in Paris, claimed by the Islamic State, added pressure to reach a consensus. The result was a plan to let opposition groups help draft a constitution and elect a new government. The plan calls for a United Nations-sponsored meeting between government and opposition representatives by Jan. 1.
Within six months, the negotiations between the Syrian sides are to establish a "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian" transitional government that would set a schedule for drafting a new constitution and holding a free and fair, U.N.-supervised election within 18 months, according to a joint statement released by the U.N. on behalf of the parties to the talks.
Yet the deal left key issues hanging, in particular Assad's future and a decision on which of the hundreds of opposition groups would participate. It doesn't specify whether the new government would have full executive power -- a key demand for those opposed to a role for Assad in the transition -- and the agreement hinges on whether Assad would commit to a process that could end his regime.
"I don't expect it to work out," Samir Nashar, a member of the Syrian National Coalition, the main political opposition group, said from Istanbul. "It ignores very important issues. It looks more like a reconciliation between the opposition and the regime."
Disputes between the U.S. and Russia on what role Assad should play in any transition remained after Saturday's meeting in Vienna, though U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov played them down as they focused on the progress they had made.
The U.S. wants Assad removed, but Kerry suggested that Syrians would decide the fate of the president through the democratic process.
Ossi said Assad's fate "will be definitely defined by the Syrian people only."
Still, Ossi said he didn't expect much from the Vienna meeting "because terrorist groups and some regional states" have no interest in launching a political process in Syria because they are still "betting on the issue of toppling the Syrian regime by the military force." He was referring to opposition groups and their supporters, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.
Abdelbaset Sieda, a senior member of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, said that after all the violence in Syria since March 2011, "all parties are convinced that it is impossible for Assad to continue as long as there is a will to keep Syria united."
"Even the Iranians and the Russians are convinced that Assad has lost the authority to be president," Sieda said. He said those two countries, Assad's strongest backers, are sticking with him only to wring out concessions that benefit them.
Sieda warned that the process to end Syria's crisis is going to be long and that violence might intensify "as a form of political pressure." He said there are "positive points" in the new plan, including a focus on a political transition and work toward a road map to make that happen.
Also Sunday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem stressed that eliminating terrorism is a necessity to preserve international stability and peace and is "a basic introduction for any political solution for the current crisis in Syria."
He made the comments during a meeting with Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Tlapa, the official Syrian Arab News Agency said.
Neither the Syrian government nor opposition groups were present at the Vienna talks, which drew the main foreign backers of both sides.
Meanwhile, an explosion in the southern village of Jamlah targeted a meeting of top officials from the extremist Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, killing the group's leader, Abu Ali al-Baridi, activists said. The group has paid allegiance to the Islamic State and has for months been fighting other insurgents, including al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Syria Press Center, an opposition media arm, reported the explosion and said other top officials were killed in the blast. They said the Nusra Front was behind the explosion. Jamlah is about 3 miles from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Information for this article was contributed by Donna Abu-Nasr and Nafeesa Syeed of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 11/16/2015