Malcolm Turnbull says a political solution in Syria will require the inclusion of Sunni groups that have felt disenfranchised by the Assad regime, and have consequently been left vulnerable to overtures from Islamic State.
The Australian prime minister told reporters at the Apec summit in Manila that in an ideal world, a post-conflict Syria would end up with “a form of government that involved power sharing between the various groups”.
“The example of Lebanon is one that springs to mind, where there is representation for people of various religious groups,” he said on Wednesday.
“Plainly, when you look at Daesh, the basis [of the extremist movement] is the Sunni population that has felt disenfranchised in Syria with very good reason and has also felt left out of the new government in Iraq,” he said.
He said a process of structured inclusion would “deprive Daesh of its support base”.
In a separate interview in Manila to Sky News, the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, might need to be part of the transition in the country because his removal would create a power vacuumthat would have its own negative consequences.
She said that if there had been any “obvious” candidates from the Syrian opposition forces to replace the dictator, their names would have come up by now.
The comments from the Australian leadership are the most unguarded assessments of the Syrian situation to date, and come after an intensive round of talks on Syria with other world leaders at the G20 and Apec summits.
The momentum for a political solution in Syria has intensified following the terror attacks in Paris last week.
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