Syrians should decide fate of President Assad

The official Syrian newspaper, Al-Baath, says the Saudi government has “tailored the opposition to suit its own agendas” and those of Israel, while state TV repeats Iranian condemnation of Islamist “terror groups” attending the meeting.

But it operates only in northern Syria, and is distrusted by other rebel groups, which shut it out of the Riyadh conference along with the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, fighting alongside other rebels against Assad in western Syria.

The talks in Saudi Arabia resulted from a plan agreed to last month by 20 world powers meeting in Vienna.

“We appreciate Saudi Arabia’s leadership in convening this broad and representative group… who agreed today on the structure of their negotiating body to represent them”, he said.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister says that Syrian President Bashar Assad has two choices: “either to leave through negotiations” or ‘be forcibly removed from power’.

According to opposition sources, the committee will be made up of 30 members, a third of them representing armed factions.

The conference succeeded in electing a 33-member Supreme Council for Negotiations, which met on Friday to choose who will meet representatives of Assad’s government in the first 10 days of January.

But divisions and obstacles remain.

Ahrar al-Sham said it faced “a religious and national duty to withdraw from the conference to protest its outcome”.

There are conflicting reports as to whether the powerful rebel group Ahrar al-Sham signed the statement.

“There’s no point in meeting in NY or anywhere else without defining terrorist groups”, he said.

The opposition groups called on the United Nations and worldwide community to force the regime to take “goodwill measures” before negotiations can begin. “Such attempts to once again impose a unilateral, non-inclusive format harm the progress on the issue, undermine the authority of the International Syria Support Group [ISSG], which includes all key ‘external players”, the ministry said in a statement.

Internationally-backed peace talks held in Geneva failed, and it remains unclear whether the dynamics of the war have shifted enough for the warring parties and their backers to be willing to make concessions.

“We appreciate that this extremely diverse group of Syrians put aside differences in the interest of building a new Syria”. Such promises have gone unfulfilled in previous cease-fires that failed, leaving behind destroyed ghost towns.

Still, the prospect of a peace deal rests on several parallel diplomatic tracks bearing fruit.