Haytham Manna, a prominent opposition figure allied to the PYD and invited to the talks, told Reuters he would not attend if his allies were not there.
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It also led to the rise of Daesh, which now controls large parts of Syria and Iraq, and the subsequent formation of a U.S.-led coalition to tackle the group in both countries.
Monzer Makhous, an HNC member, said: “We are still in discussion”.
Negotiations had been scheduled to open on Monday, but United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters in Geneva “a stalemate” over the makeup of the delegations had forced the date back.
Meanwhile the Saudi-backed Syrian opposition said it would decide on January 27 whether to take part in Geneva peace talks this week saying it welcomed an invitation to the negotiations but was seeking clarifications from the United Nations.
France’s foreign ministry also said on Tuesday that the Syrian opposition platform created in Riyadh last month must lead proposed talks with the Syrian government.
In a sign of the tremendous strains on the fragile diplomatic efforts, de Mistura announced that the relaunched peace talks would not, at least initially, have the Syrian government and opposition delegations meeting in the same room, but would have diplomats shuttling between delegations in different rooms.
Ilham Ahmed, a Kurdish politician who co-chairs the SDC, heaped criticism on de Mistura.
Reflecting opposition misgivings, he told Al Hadath that US Secretary of State John Kerry had tabled Iranian and Russian ideas about Syria at a recent meeting with opposition leader Riad Hijab.
An opposition spokesman, Salim al-Muslat, said the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), which represents a number of opposition groups, was inclined to accept the invitation, but cautioned that a final decision would not be made until after a HNC meeting on Wednesday in the Saudi Arabian capital.
“The military actions of Russia’s air force in response to the request of the Syrian government have drastically altered the situation in the country and have helped to narrow the area controlled by terrorists”.
Turkey’s top diplomat stressed that Ankara was previously promised that the PYD would not be included in the talks.
Turkey, a major sponsor of the insurgency, however said it was against the participation of the Kurdish YPG militia which is affiliated to the PYD.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Tuesday that the talks “cannot achieve the results we want, a definitive political resolution in Syria”, if the Syrian Kurds are excluded from the talks.
“Some members of the global Syria Support Group, as I understand, insist that only those opposition groups that met past year in Riyadh are worthy of representing the Syrian opposition, and all the others should be left out”.
Russian Federation appears to be hardening its position on Syria, as it backed government forces making gains against rebels before the peace talks start.
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A claim that may be true in light of the fact that intensified Russian air strikes are enabling the Syrian regime to recapture lost territory and further secure its home-base in Damascus.
