‘UAE ready to send troops to Syria’

He told reporters in Dubai on Tuesday that reports of possible ground- troop deployments, as well as the massing of refugees at the Turkish border, require restraint from all sides.

The maneuver comes at a sensitive time after Saudi Arabia announced readiness to participate in any ground incursion in Syria if the US-led coalition decides to start such an operation.

The UAE has troops in Yemen supporting Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi government’s attempts to push back Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The main Syrian opposition group is unlikely to return to Geneva to take part in indirect peace talks because of Syria and Russia’s “arrogant” and “merciless” bombing campaign, its chief negotiator said.

He added that a prerequisite for the UAE to join would be leadership from the United States on the matter.

Turkey and Saudi already belong to a US-led coalition which officially has 65 members.

She didn’t shun aside the possibility of a ground Saudi intervention “not only because they want to make the Geneva conference a failure, but also to compensate for its consecutive losses in Yemen”. Russian Federation launched its own strikes in Syria in late September and Iran has reportedly sent hundreds of troops tsupport Assad’s regime.

“Gargash said the UAE had always stated there also needed to be a “genuine political process in Baghdad that will encompass the Sunnis” in Iraq, which has a Shia-led government”.

Syria’s almost five years of conflict has been largely blamed on global intervention in the course of actions on ground.

State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the United States welcomed the Saudi offer, and that discussions were ongoing, but would not comment on the nature or timing of any operation.

Foreign army soldiers who enter Syria without government consent would “return home in wooden coffins”, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said, in a warning to Saudi Arabia. Carter said he planned to use next week’s meetings in Brussels to help encourage more broad-based support for accelerating the fight against Islamic State.