Nearly three months after Bashar al-Assad fled, much of Syria is suspended between relief at the dictatorship’s demise and anxiety over what comes next.

Although the conference was called to chart the country’s future, the Kurdish-led militia that controls much of Syria’s northeast was not invited.

Syria's national dialogue conference, held Tuesday in Damascus, called for transitional justice, freedom and a state monopoly on arms to be among the cornerstones of the country's reconstruction after