Iran claims groups linked to IS are at Riyadh talks

“The goal of the political settlement is to establish a civic state in which there is no place for Bashar al-Assad and pillars and symbols of his regime”, said the text of the Riyadh agreement carried by Saudi Arabia’s state news agency.

A final statement said President Bashar al-Assad should leave power at the start of a transitional period and called for a democratic, all-inclusive state. “There’s a big difference between militants, terrorists and opposition”, Assad said.

And while opposition leaders have said the groups did agree on a framework for future talks, the withdrawal of Ahrar al-Sham highlights the lasting divisions among the opposition.

Earlier, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said: “Al-Assad will leave with no doubt, either by a political solution, which can be easier for all, or he will leave through a military solution because he is no longer wanted by the Syrian people”.

“For us, in Syria, everyone who holds a machinegun is a terrorist”.

Faced with a threat from the “Islamic State”, a wave of refugees, and Russian intervention, the West has softened its stance on Assad, leaving his role in a transition ambiguous in worldwide peace talks joined by top diplomats from 20 nations in Vienna last month.

The statement calls for a new “pluralistic regime that represents all sectors” in Syria, Reuters report.

Saudi Arabia is a financial and diplomatic backer of the Syrian opposition fighting to oust al-Assad.

The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and a Syrian Kurdish group that has taken control of areas in north Syria had not been invited to the talks in Riyadh.

The United States warned Friday that some problems still needed to be resolved in the opposition pact if UN-backed peace talks are to resume next week.

Asked whether a planned December 18 worldwide meeting on the Syria conflict would go ahead in New York, Kerry said: “We’ll have to see”.

And one powerful Islamist rebel brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, announced that it was withdrawing from the conference, accusing other delegates of being too close to the Syrian government and saying that conference failed to “confirm the Muslim identity of our people”.

The walkout pointed to how deeply contentious the issue of negotiating with the regime is, especially for the armed groups that have been fighting for the past four years to topple Assad.