The U.N. peace envoy for Syria said on Wednesday that Bashar al-Assad could have no place in a transitional government to end civil war, the closest he has come to calling directly for the embattled president to quit.

A peace plan agreed by major powers in Geneva last year envisages an interim administration. “Surely he would not be a member of that government,” U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi told Reuters in an interview in Cairo.

He reiterated that the Geneva plan remained “the base for a solution in Syria,” ravaged by a war the United Nations says has already killed 60,000 people.

“There is no military solution,” he said. “The solution shouldn’t wait until 2014. It should be in 2013.”

He described a speech by Assad this week as “uncompromising,” saying he had “narrowed his initiative by excluding some parties” from his own peace proposals. Assad’s speech offered no concessions and included a vow never to talk to foes he branded terrorists and Western puppets.

Brahimi urged all parties to compromise for the sake of the victims of the conflict.

Brahimi was expected to travel to Geneva on Thursday for a meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, whose governments back different sides in the war.

He said the opposition and Assad had to accept the Geneva plan and implement it. “Of course this requires ceasing fire,” he said.

Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war. But Russia and Iran both said that his points should be taken seriously. 

Assad said Syria will not take dictates from anyone but urged Syrians to unite to save the country.

“Every citizen is responsible for doing what he can to offer something, no matter how simple in his eyes, for the nation is for everyone and we all must defend it with all that we have,” he said.

“The first part of a political solution would require regional powers to stop funding and arming (the rebels), an end to terrorism and controlling the borders,” he said.

He said this would then be followed by dialogue and a national reconciliation conference and the formation of a wide representative government which would then oversee new elections, a new constitution and general amnesty.

However, Assad made clear his offer to hold a dialogue is not open to those whom he considers extremists or carrying out a foreign agenda.

“We do not reject political dialogue … but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don’t believe in any language but killing and terrorism?” Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.

“Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?”

It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital’s outskirts.

George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did “not even deserve to be called an initiative”:

“We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people,” he said.

A Syrian refugee watches a television broadcast of Syria’s President Assad speaking in Damascus, in their container at the Al-Zaatari refugee camp in Mafraq. REUTERS

Assad’s foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech. “His remarks are just repetitions of what he’s said all along,” said Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign minister of Syria’s northern neighbor and former friend Turkey.

The U.S. State Department said Assad’s speech “is yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power and does nothing to advance the Syrian people’s goal of a political transition”.

“His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people,” said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

“We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word,” Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. “This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation.”

Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.

But Assad’s forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.

As Russian and U.S. diplomats prepare for a meeting with Brahimi, Russian diplomats are calling for a balanced approach to settling the 21-month political crisis.

“The Russian side expects that the search for forms of international support for the settlement process of the acute domestic crisis in Syria…will take into account the ideas expressed in a speech by the President of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

Russian and U.S. officials, while supportive of ending the spiraling violence that has killed tens of thousands of Syrians, remain at odds over what part Assad should play in any negotiations. 

Moscow, which has had talks with both members of the opposition as well as officials loyal to Assad, supports the Geneva communiqué, which calls for both sides to honor a ceasefire, start negotiations and form a transitional government. They said added that Assad made key points in his plan that need to be considered. 

This approach is at variance with Washington’s position, which echoes that of the militant opposition, that Assad should be excluded from any future negotiations. Yet Russian and American diplomats, despite or because of their differences, continue talking.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov will meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Lakhdar Brahimi in Geneva on January 11th.

Meanwhile, Iran also threw its support behind Assad’s plan on Tuesday. 

And speaking on behalf of the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, India’s national security adviser Shiva Shankar Menon said the conflict should “be resolved through negotiations.”

Only Syrians themselves can decide their future, Menon added.

China also weighed in, saying it “supports all efforts aimed at resolving the Syrian issue by political means.”

Damascus also was surprised by the recent comments made about Assad’s standing by Brahimi, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The pro-Assad al-Watan newspaper referred to Brahimi as “a tool for the implementation of the policy of some Western countries.” 

“In Syria, in particular, I think that what people are saying is that a family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long,” Brahimi told Britain’s BBC in an earlier interview.

His comments were welcomed by the opposition, which has long been angered by the U.N. mediator’s refusal to take a firm position on excluding a future role for Assad.

“The statement of Lakhdar Brahimi has been long awaited,” the opposition National Coalition’s representative to Britain, Walid Saffour, told Reuters.

“He hasn’t criticized Bashar al-Assad before, but now, after he despaired of Assad after his Sunday speech, he had no other alternative than to say to the world that this rule is a family rule, and more than 40 years is enough.”

Assad has ruled since 2000, taking over from his father Hafez, who seized power in a 1970 coup.

Brahimi told the BBC that Assad had told him he wanted to run for re-election in 2014. Brahimi said the crisis needed to be resolved by the end of 2013 “or there will be no Syria”.

After three days of silence following Assad’s speech, Moscow finally offered its support on Wednesday. Assad’s proposals “affirmed the readiness for the launch of an inter-Syrian dialogue and for reforming the country on the basis of Syrian sovereignty”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said Assad’s new peace plan had been sent to the United Nations and was in line with Brahimi’s plan.

On the ground in Syria there was no let-up in fighting, despite four straight days of relentless rain, wind, hail and snowfall that weather officials in neighboring Lebanon and Israel have called the worst winter storm for 20 years.

Rebels made a new push to seize a government air base in Taftanaz in the north of the country, which they failed to take in a three-day offensive last week.

After six months of advances, the rebels now control swathes of the north and east of the country, as well as a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of Damascus.

The government still has firm control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway, the Mediterranean coast and military bases around the country from which its planes and helicopters can attack with impunity.

The extreme weather has raised concern for the 600,000 refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, for displaced people within Syria and for civilians, especially in rebel-held areas where fuel and food are growing scarce.

Residents in mainly rebel-held Aleppo were burning furniture and doors to stay warm, said Michal Przedalicki, an aid worker from the Czech charity People in Need working in northern Syria.

“Unfortunately, I think it is quite likely that people will die from the severe weather conditions. Already people have not been eating enough for several months, and that exposes their bodies to more disease and infection.”

In Damascus, rebels freed 48 Iranian captives they had been holding since August in return for the government releasing more than 2,000 prisoners. The Iranians arrived at a hotel in central Damascus.

-TAAN, Reuters, RT