Syrian opposition delegation arrives in Geneva
Thomson ReutersA girl pushes a boy on a bicycle past damaged buildings in JobarA triple bombing claimed by the extremist Islamic State group killed at least 45 people near the Syrian capital of Damascus on Sunday, overshadowing an already shaky start to what are meant to be indirect Syria peace talks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group that monitors both sides of the conflict through a network of activists inside Syria, said the blast killed 12 people and wounded about two dozen.
Syria’s ally Moscow has slammed the appointment, saying it considers Jaish Al Islam as “terrorists” and other opposition groups insisted it was unacceptable for the delegation to be led by a member of an armed group.
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Syrian peace talks ran into trouble Sunday with the government delegation denouncing opposition negotiators as “not serious” as Washington urged both sides to seize the moment to end five years of bloodshed. “The road ahead remains challenging, success is not assured, but we have seen through years of savage fighting what the absence of serious negotiations yields”, he said.
But Riad Hijab, the head of the HNC who is not in Geneva, warned in an online post that the delegation’s presence “will not be justified” if the Syrian government continues to “commit these crimes”.
Before agreeing to sit down for the so-called proximity talks, in which de Mistura is set to shuttle between the sides, HNC has demanded that humanitarian aid first gets through to besieged towns, that bombing of civilians ceases and that hundreds of prisoners are released.
“The aim of this cowardly and desperate terrorist attack is to raise the morale of the defeated terrorist groups following the great victories that our courageous army has accomplished in several areas”, the state-run SANA news agency reported that Halqi said.
The UN estimates that over 486,000 people in Syria are living in besieged areas – over 274,000 are under the control of government forces, 200,000 people are under Islamic State control, and over 12,000 people are besieged by other groups.
Bassma Kodmani, an opposition member, said that the opposition delegation agreed to come to Geneva because they had received promises from US Secretary of State John Kerry and a number of European politicians.
Under intense global pressure to participate in the talks, the opposition said late Friday that it would send a small team of three representatives to discuss their concerns with Mr.de Mistura.
Opposition activists have accused Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant and political group, of helping the Syrian government’s siege of Madaya.
He added that there will not be direct talks in Geneva and the UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan De Mistura will meet each delegation separately. The goal is a nationwide ceasefire agreement among all factions other than ISIS and the al Qaeda-affiliated al Nusra Front.
Bassam Bitar of the opposition’s Movement for a Pluralistic Society said the PYD will most likely be invited to take part in future rounds of negotiations.
“What we want to ensure is that this time it will not be like Geneva II”, de Mistura told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, referring to the 2014 talks.