Syria dismisses global deal

Official Syrian state media on Sunday slammed as a failure the outcome of a world powers deal on a transition for the violence-ridden country.

Meanwhile the opposition was split over the deal, with the Saudi-backed Syrian National Council (SNC) welcoming parts of the agreement while the Local Coordination Committees rejected it.

World powers on Saturday agreed on a plan for a transition that could include current regime members, although the West did not see any role for President Bashar Assad in a new unity government.

Both Russia and China, which have twice blocked UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, insisted that Syrians themselves must decide how the transition should be carried out rather than allow others to dictate their fate.

However, both Moscow and Beijing signed up to the deal.

Al-Baath, the newspaper of the ruling Baath party, said the Geneva meeting had "failed."

"The agreement of the task force on Syria in Geneva on Saturday resembles an enlarged meeting of the UN Security Council where the positions of participants remained the same," Al-Baath said.

Al-Baath said only the Syrians themselves can solve the crisis.

"No resolution of the crisis will succeed if it is not based on the opinion of the Syrian people and the source of law," it wrote in an editorial.

"The Syrians are capable of initiating a national dialogue in which there is no room for neighboring countries, especially those that incite the killing of Syrians."

Pro-government daily Al-Watan welcomed that the final statement of the Geneva meeting did not refer to a post-crisis scenario similar to Yemen, indicating a negotiated departure of Assad, or recommend military intervention as in Libya.

"The statement made no mention of the Yemeni and Libyan scenarios, recently propagated by Arab and Western media, which has disappointed the Syrian opposition abroad," it said.

The Syrian authorities have yet to respond formally to the Geneva agreement.

A spokesperson for the Gulf-backed SNC on Sunday welcomed "a few positive elements" in the transition deal, but said the plan was too vague.

The final declaration of the meeting on Syria "seems to suggest a few positive elements," Basma Qadmani said.

"The first one is that the final declaration says that the participants agree to say that the Assad family cannot rule the country any more, and therefore the Assad family cannot lead the transition period."

"The second positive element is the agreement that the transition should comply with the legitimate aspirations of Syrian people.

But she added: "Important elements remain too ambiguous...and the plan is too vague to foresee real and immediate action."

However the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) group, which organizes protests on the ground in Syria, said the outcome of the talks showed once again the failure to adopt a common position.

"The international community has one more time failed to adopt a common position to force the Assad regime to cease its crimes against the Syrian people who have risen up against it," the LCC said.

It called the transition accord "just one version, different in form only, of the demands of Russian leaders allied to the Assad regime and who cover it militarily and politically in the face of international pressure."

(Al-Akhbar, AFP)