On Dec. 24, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, called together a delegation of Syrian opposition leaders to deliver a blunt message: Riyadh would be throttling back its military support for their efforts to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

It was time, Jubeir counseled, to devote their energies instead to securing a political deal with Damascus at a peace conference in January in Sochi, Russia, according to two opposition sources and two other diplomatic officials who described the meeting to Foreign Policy. If they were well prepared for Sochi, Jubeir argued, they would be in a better position to get an agreement on a political transition. (Saudi officials in New York and Washington did not respond to requests for comment.)

Jubeir’s appeals mark another reversal for Syria’s beleaguered anti-Assad forces, who already lost the covert military backing of the United States in July. More important, the Saudi message underscores the success of Russia’s diplomatic push to shape the future of postwar Syria, which is quickly coming to rival the official, U.N.-led process that has sputtered along for five years in Geneva.

Read the full article at Foreign Policy.