Opposition agree on Syria plan

BEIRUT - Agence France-Presse

Syria’s main domestic and exiled opposition groups has said they had agreed a joint draft roadmap for the first time, calling for a transitional governing body and an end to the brutal conflict.

The draft document comes after representatives from the exiled Syrian National Coalition and the domestic National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC) met in Paris. “This is the first time that we have an agreement between both organizations, the Coalition and the NCCDC,” said Khalaf Dahowd, a member of the NCCDC’s executive bureau.

Dahowd said representatives from the two opposition groups met in Paris from Feb. 21 to 24, at talks hosted by France but carried out without international involvement.

“It was Syrian-Syrian. There was no foreign power involved. No one was in our meetings, and that was very good,” he told AFP.

He said the two sides had agreed a draft document based on U.N. Security Council resolutions on Syria and the so-called Geneva communique that emerged from peace talks in the Swiss city in 2012.