GENEVA, June 30: International powers agreed on Saturday that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the bloodshed there but left open the question of what part President Bashar al-Assad might play in the process.

Peace envoy Kofi Annan said after talks in Geneva that the government should include members of Assad’s administration and the Syrian opposition to pave the way for free elections.

“It is for the people to come to a political agreement but time is running out,” Annan said in concluding remarks.

“We need rapid steps to reach agreement. The conflict must be resolved through peaceful dialogue and negotiations.”

The Geneva talks had been billed as a last-ditch effort to halt the worsening violence in Syria but hit obstacles as Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, opposed Western and Arab insistence that he must quit the scene.

The final statement said the transitional government “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent”.

But in a victory for Russian diplomacy, it omitted language contained in a previous draft which explicitly said it “would exclude from government those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardise stability and reconciliation”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was “delighted” with the result as it meant no foreign solution was being imposed on Syria.

But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it sent a clear message to Assad that he must step down. “Assad will still have to go,” Clinton told a news conference after the meeting ended.

“What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power.”

Annan called the meeting to salvage a peace plan that has largely been ignored by the Assad government. He stressed that the transition must be led by Syrians and meet their legitimate aspirations.

“No one should be in any doubt as to the extreme dangers posed by the conflict — to Syrians, to the region, and to the world,” he said in opening remarks.

His plan for a negotiated solution to the 16-month-old conflict is the only one on the table and its failure would doom Syria to even more violence. More than 10,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising broke out and the past few weeks have been among the bloodiest.—Reuters