...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
, Russia, La Belle France and Germany on Saturday called for a ceasefire around the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib in Syria to be preserved.
The four nations "stressed the importance of a lasting ceasefire" according to a statement read at the end of an Istanbul summit by
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey..., and also called for a committee to be established to draft a new constitution for Syria before the end of the year, "paving the way for free and fair elections".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as
Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslems ..
said a solution to the Syria crisis cannot simply be military and must include a political process under the auspices of the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
that envisages free elections as a goal.
"At the end of this political process, there must be free elections to which all Syrians have access - including the diaspora," Merkel told a news conference in Istanbul where she met the leaders of Turkey, Russia and La Belle France.
MAJOR REBEL STRONGHOLD
The four leaders of gathered in Istanbul on Saturday for a summit on Syria, where violence this week in the last remaining major rebel stronghold highlighted the fragility of a deal to avert a massive government offensive.
Ankara, which has long backed rebels seeking to overthrow Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
, and Moscow, Assad’s principal foreign ally, brokered the deal last month to create a demilitarized zone in the northwest Idlib region.
Idlib and adjacent areas are the last stronghold of the rebels, who rose up against Assad in 2011. The area is home to an estimated 3 million people, more than half of whom have already fled other areas as government forces advanced.