Major Powers Make 'Progress' on Syria in Vienna, at Odds over Assad

Major powers narrowed their differences over the Syrian war Friday but remained divided over the key issue of the future of President Bashar Assad, France's foreign minister said.

Another round of talks will be held in two weeks' time, Laurent Fabius told reporters in Vienna.

"We discussed all issues, even the most difficult," he told reporters after talks that for the first time brought together all the main foreign actors in the conflict.

"There are points of disagreement, but we advanced enough for us to meet again, in the same configuration, in two weeks."

"The main disagreement is the future role of Mr. Bashar Assad," Fabius said after top diplomats from 17 countries, as well as the United Nations and the European Union, wrapped up their talks.

"But there are a number of points on which we agreed, notably on the transition process, the prospect of elections and how all this should be organized and the role of the United Nations."

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the meeting was "not an easy one but a historic one" and stressed that future negotiations would happen "under the auspices of the U.N."

"Some major issues remain but we have found some common ground," she added. 

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the participants had discovered "that we agree on quite a lot" but differences remain, "notably over the future of Bashar Assad."

"We have agreed that we will try to narrow those differences," he added.

The West and Gulf monarchies led by Saudi Arabia want Assad to step down, but Russia and Iran insist he has a right to play a role in an eventual transition towards a mooted unity government and later elections.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after the talks that he had "agreed to disagree" with his Iranian and Russian counterparts on Assad's fate.

Kerry said Washington still believes Assad leaving office would smooth the path to a deal to end Syria's war and help to defeat IS.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif disagreed, he admitted, but all three would continue to work together to pursue a political settlement.

He said the participants had agreed to ask the United Nations to broker a ceasefire. Kerry and Lavrov also said they had agreed that Syria must emerge from war as a unified secular state.

Top diplomats from 17 countries, as well as the United Nations and the European Union, gathered in Vienna for the talks bringing together all the main outside players in the four-year-old crisis for the first time.

The Syrian regime and the opposition were not represented.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir -- whose kingdom supports anti-regime rebels -- was sat almost as far from his Iranian counterpart as was possible at the tight U-shaped table in a conference room of Vienna's Imperial Hotel.

Yet even getting Iran and Saudi Arabia -- the Middle East's foremost Shiite and Sunni powers which back opposing sides in conflicts across the Arab world -- to be in the same room was seen as progress.

Russia and Saudi Arabia also exchanged a list of Syrian opposition groups with which they have contact, Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, quoted by RIA Novosti state news agency.

Russia, which has waged a month of intense air strikes against Assad's armed opponents, has urged preparations for parliamentary and presidential elections in Syria.

But the idea has been rejected by rebels who say a vote would be impossible in the current circumstances, with millions of Syrians displaced, cities standing in ruins and two-thirds of the country in the hands of jihadists and other armed groups.