European leaders including David Cameron have urged Russia to maintain the ceasefire in Syria so peace talks, which they hope will eventually lead to President Bashar al-Assad stepping down, can go ahead as early as next week.
The British prime minister, French president, François Hollande, German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi held a 50-minute call with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Friday morning.
Cameron’s spokeswoman said he had stressed to Putin the importance of using the opportunity created by the ceasefire to press forward with a formal peace process. This could begin with talks in Geneva from the end of next week and end with “a transition away from Assad”.
“We welcome the fact that this fragile truce appears to be holding,” she said, adding that Downing Street hoped the ceasefire could last long enough for the process outlined in the Vienna peace agreement, struck late last year, to begin in earnest,” she said.
“Everybody on the call had a common interest in defeating Daesh [Islamic State] in Syria and tackling the Islamist threat, and therefore it is in all our interest to support a peace process in the country that can lead to a stable, inclusive government that has the support of all Syrians.”
The leaders also discussed the need to get humanitarian aid to besieged towns in Syria, and to improve conditions sufficiently to allow refugees who had fled the fighting to return home.
Speaking after the call, Hollande criticised Assad for scheduling elections in Syria next month, calling the move “provocative” and “unrealistic”.
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