owen matthews, a bit crazy this morning. owen matthews is with us. a contributing editor at newsweek europe to talk about this. owen good to see you. >> good morning. >> you're based in istanbul. >> i'm based in istanbul. >> so where are we in terms of what's taking place in syria. >> well, in many ways there's been a break through. it's hard to argue that we haven't been here before. we have been through negotiations. we have been through endless going around the basic issue and that's whether assad is going to stay or leave but the latest break through focused on kicking that question down the road a little bit and we basically have for the first time both the syrian government and at least some of the competence on the grou ground. the problem is the devil is always in the details so what needs to happen is what we have is stage one. all of the big international playe players. they all now want a negotiated process whereby six months is going to be the frame work for getting a nonsectarian government in place and free elections in 18 months. that'