Syria’s Opposition to Hold Peace Talks With Assad-Led Government in January

Monzer Akbik, a member of the National Coalition opposition group, said the conference agreed to set up a 32-member secretariat to oversee and supervise peace talks.

“Bashar Assad has two solutions: leave through negotiations, which is easier and better for all, or he will have to leave through fighting because the Syrian people refuse that this regime and person stays in power”, The Telegraph quoted the Saudi minister as saying.

The United States swiftly welcomed the Riyadh accord.

US State Department spokesman John Kirby said, however, that Ahrar al-Sham “were at the conference today” and that the US considered them one of the 116 participants that formed a consensus.

Assad noted that he would negotiate with a genuine Syrian opposition but that armed groups would have to lay down their arms in exchange for amnesty.

Secretary of State John Kerry said he would talk with his Saudi counterpart about how to fix problems in the deal reached Thursday by Syrian rebel groups meeting in Riyadh. A separate negotiating team of 15 members would also be appointed, he told Reuters.

The measures include the ending of regime sieges on towns and districts to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, a halt to executions, the release of political detainees and the creation of conditions to allow for the return of refugees.

The future of Assad was a key issue of the talks.

The powerful Islamist insurgent group Ahrar al Sham was represented, along with a number of FSA groups that have received military support from states opposed to Mr Assad, such as Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Major powers agreed in Vienna last month to revive diplomatic efforts to end the war, calling for peace talks to start by January and elections within two years.

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.

But the opposition demand for Assad to go “is of course unacceptable to the regime”, said Pierret.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said groups linked to IS were attending. “For us, in Syria, everyone who holds a machinegun is a terrorist”.

He said it was up to the Syrian people to decide whether he should leave his post, but that he had the support of the “majority of the Syrians”.