DHAKA: Syria’s main opposition bloc has put forward a plan for a political transition and a ceasefire to end more than five years of civil war in the country.

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said on Wednesday that the proposed process would start with six months of negotiations aimed at setting up a transitional administration made up of figures from the opposition, the government and civil society.

President Bashar al-Assad would be required to leave office at the end of those six months, the bloc, which represents Syria’s political and armed opposition factions, said at a meeting in London attended by foreign ministers from around the world.

The transitional body would then run the country for 18 months, after which there would be elections, reports Al Jazeera.

Chief opposition negotiator Riyad Hijab, who defected from the government in 2012 after being appointed prime minister, said the HNC would reject any agreement struck by Russia and the US if it largely differed from the HNC’s terms.

“If what the Russians and the Americans agree upon is very much different from what the Syrians aspire to, then we shall not accept it,” Hijab said.

Reporting from the meeting in the UK capital, Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor James Bays said the plan was “the most detailed blueprint that the opposition has come up with of the way they see things going forward”.

BDST: 1835 HRS, SEP 08, 2016
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