Tehran signalled on Friday it backed a six-month transition period in Syria followed by elections to decide Bashar al-Assad’s fate, a proposal floated at peace talks here as a concession. But the Mr. Assad’s foes rejected it as a trick to keep him in power.
Sources who described the Iranian proposal said it amounted to Mr. Assad’s closest ally dropping its insistence on him remaining in office.
But Mr. Assad’s enemies say a new election would keep him in power unless other steps were taken to remove him. His government held an election as recently as last year, which he easily won. His opponents have always rejected any proposal for a transition unless he is removed.
Iranian officials attended international peace talks on Syria for the first time on Friday in Vienna, a month after the balance of power in the four-year-old civil war shifted in Mr. Assad’s favour with Russia launching air strikes against his foes.
