Lakhdar Brahimi urges “real change” in Damascus and for transitional leaders with full power until elections are held.International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has called for “real change” in war-torn Syria and the installation of a transitional government with full powers until elections can be held.The envoy unveiled his initiative in Damascus on Thursday as Russia, the most powerful ally of Syria’s government, denied the existence of a joint peace plan with the United States, amid a flurry of year-end diplomatic activity on the crisis.“Change should not be cosmetic; the Syrian people need and require real change, and everyone understands what that means,” the UN-Arab League envoy said on the fifth day of his latest peace mission to Syria.“We need to form a government with all powers... which assumes power during a period of transition. That transition period will end with elections,” Brahimi told reporters.He did not specify a date for the envisaged elections, either presidential or parliamentary depending on what could be agreed. He also made no mention on the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, whose current term expires in 2014.“The transition period should not lead to the collapse of the state and its institutions,” Brahimi said, adding the initiative was incomplete.“We prefer... a project whose facilitation the parties have agreed upon, and, if they do not, the last solution is going to the (UN) Security Council which will make a binding resolution.”Brahimi, who while in Damascus has held talks with Assad as well as with opposition groups tolerated by the regime, replaced former UN chief Kofi Annan after his dramatic resignation in August over what he said was the failure of major powers to back his own six-point peace plan.
