Syrian Opposition Says Decentralization Needed to Preserve Statehood

The majority of participants of the intra-Syrian talks currently underway in Kazakhstan signed the final document after negotiations, Bassam Bithar, a representative from the Movement for a Pluralistic Society, told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

ASTANA (Sputnik) – The participants of the intra-Syrian consultations held in Kazakhstan have said the decentralization of power is needed to preserve the statehood of Syria, according to a declaration after the meetings in Astana on Wednesday.

“The condition for preserving Syria as a united national government is the grassroots transfer on the basis of broad-based decentralization to a pluralistic democracy,” the declaration penned in Arabic reads.

The participants said that transferring power into a pluralistic democracy would solve the problem of one single religion or ethnicity dominating power in Syria.

“The majority in the negotiations signed the final document that differs from the one signed yesterday,” Bithar said.

Participants of the Syrian opposition talks have expressed that the intra-Syrian agreements reached in Moscow should be one of the foundations for the gradual transfer of political power in the country.

Only a political solution is possible in solving the Syrian crisis and a military approach to its resolution is impossible, according to the declaration.

“The participants of the meeting have called for the necessity of all foreign fighters from all sides of the conflict to leave the country and renew the [Syrian] army,” the declaration penned in Arabic reads.