Senior diplomats from the West and the Middle East are to meet once again in Vienna in an effort to salvage stumbling efforts to halt Syria’s bloody civil war.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at loggerheads over much else in the world, will chair the meeting on Tuesday.
At the gathering, the 17-nation International Syria Support Group (ISSG) will renew its call for a national cessation of hostilities and immediate humanitarian access to besieged communities.
But the third plank of the plan – a call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rebels to agree on a “framework for political transition” – may cause headaches.
US officials travelling with Kerry say Washington still insists that Assad should go, with an August 1 deadline for settling on the framework under which he does so.
But the Syrian president, bolstered by military support from Russia and Iran, has shown no sign he is prepared to leave and his forces are still battling for territory.
“There’s a sentiment here in Vienna that it may take some time to bridge the gap between the two key players,” said Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the Austrian capital.
“We’ve been talking to members of the Syrian opposition, They say they have lost trust. If they don’t get clarity about Assad, they wont sign anything.”