Syria’s Assad says won’t talk to ‘terrorists’ as US wants

The leader, who lost control of large parts of the country after a civil war began in 2011, told state media on Friday he would not enter talks with “terrorists”.

Asked whether he’d be willing to join discussions called for by world powers by January 1, he said: “They desire the Syrian government to negotiate with terrorists, something I don’t believe anyone would accept in any state”.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a meeting of Syrian rebel groups in Saudi Arabia appears to be “very constructive”, but that it is too soon to schedule a new round of peace talks.

But the opposition groups, while agreeing a joint negotiating team for future ceasefire talks, also demanded Assad step down immediately, a potential sticking point.

Saudi Arabia, a strong supporter of the rebels fighting for more than four years to topple President Bashar al-Assad, is hosting the opposition this week in the most ambitious attempt yet to find an agreed platform ahead of planned global peace talks in NY.

Under the outlines of a plan agreed to by world powers in Vienna last month, representatives of the government and the opposition are supposed to meet in January for direct talks focused on securing a cease-fire and creating a transitional government to run Syria until elections are held.

Meanwhile, Islamic State claimed a triple truck bomb attack that killed dozens of people in a part of northeastern Syria where Kurdish YPG forces have been pushing back the Islamist militants in recent weeks.

Assad’s fate was one of several questions left unresolved at the Vienna meeting last month which was attended by Russian Federation, the United States, European and Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran, which back opposing sides in Syria.

The US has approached the hard-line Ahrar al-Sham with caution, neither discounting including the group in the future of Syria nor opening up to it.

The Syrian delegates underlined the need to safeguard the territorial integrity of their country and reiterated their conviction that Syria has to remain an all-inclusive, civic, and sovereign state based on a federal structure.

CONFIDENCE-BUILDING The meeting called on the United Nations to pressure the Syrian government to make a series of confidence-building moves before peace talks start, including suspending death sentences against opponents, releasing prisoners and lifting sieges.

Syria s main opposition groups agreed at unprecedented talks Thursday to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad s regime but insisted he step down at the start of a political transition.

The meeting, which will continue through Friday, includes representatives from the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition and even some Islamist insurgent groups.

The two-day Riyadh conference brought together more than 100 members of Syria’s fragmented political and armed opposition who agreed to work together to prepare for peace talks.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a TV interview in Damascus, Syria in this still image taken from a video on November 29, 2015.

For Karim Bitar of the Institute for worldwide and Strategic Affairs, “the apparent split in Ahrar al-Sham is a first sign that things could go wrong”.