Progress reached on Syria, meeting to be held in 15 days — Fabius

VIENNA, October 30. /TASS/. The participants of the Vienna meeting on Syria have reached progress on some issues, but there is no complete accord between them; the next meeting will take place in 15 days and the participants of talks will be the same, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday after discussions that lasted some eight hours.

"We have reached certain progress on some points: the transition political process, elections, the future constitution in Syria," Fabius said. "But there’s no complete accord. We agreed to meet here in the same composition in two weeks," Fabius said.

He said the key disputable issue is the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"Assad is the key culprit of the Syrian tragedy. He can’t be part of the future political project in Syria," he said.

According to UN statistics, fighting between Syrian government troops and militants has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions since its start in 2011.

An international peace conference on Syria, dubbed Geneva-2, organized by Russia and the United States and designed to negotiate a solution to the Syrian crisis, held in January and February 2014, brought no particular progress.

Russia’s Aerospace Forces started delivering pinpoint strikes at facilities of the Islamic State terrorist organization in Syria on September 30. The air group comprises over 50 aircraft and helicopters, including Sukhoi Su-24M, Su-25SM and state-of-the-art Su-34 aircraft. Hundreds of terrorist facilities have been hit by Russian aircraft.

On October 7, four missile ships of the Russian Navy’s Caspian Flotilla fired 26 Kalibr cruise missiles (NATO codename Sizzler) at militants’ facilities in Syria. On October 8, the Syrian army passed to a large-scale offensive.

Russia’s Armed Forces act on a request from Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Russian Federation does not plan to take part in ground operations in Syria.