Assad’s comments to Spanish news agency EFE were published by Syria’s state media Friday, a day after a conference in Saudi Arabia that sought to form a unified opposition front ahead of proposed talks on ending Syria’s almost five-year conflict.
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In the wake of talks among various rebel factions in Saudi Arabia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appeared to put the kibosh on the prospect of peace talks, saying he refuses to negotiate with any of the “terrorist groups”, which Syrian officials broadly mean as rebels in general, who are still armed factions.
The opposition was willing to enter talks with Syrian government representatives and to accept a UN-supervised ceasefire, the statement said.
Despite excluding the main Islamic militant groups in Syria, as Russian Federation wished, Moscow objected to the inclusion of groups it views as closely related to such “infamous” terrorist groups, including Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), and Ahrar al-Sham.
The disparate groups agreed on a common framework following two days of talks in Riyadh.
The US Secretary of State was clearly right when he said there were still some “kinks” to be dealt with before talks could proceed.
A gathering of Syrian Al Qaeda-linked militias and exile politicians convened by the Saudi monarchy in Riyadh concluded Friday with the adoption of a joint agreement but with little clarity as to who was supporting it and even less on what objective it will serve in furthering the stated aim of a negotiated end to Syria’s bloody civil war.
“As I said before, Bashar Assad has two solutions: Leave through negotiations, which is easier and better for all”.
“The outcome is somewhat positive… but it is fragile and the process can collapse at any time”, he said.
Assad said that after backing the armed opposition, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the West now want “the terrorist groups to join these negotiations”, adding they “cannot be opposition while it’s related and beholden to any other country, to a foreign country”. Besides Russia’s slamming of the talks between political and armed opposition factions, the groups did end up calling for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has Russia’s support. The Syrian government refers to all insurgent groups as terrorists.
While the reaction of Iran and Russian Federation to the Riyadh declaration was muted, they have pointed up an obvious contradiction on the other team.
Several Western diplomats were at the tightly secured luxury hotel where the talks took place without taking part in the sessions, and sources there said a Russian diplomat was at the hotel when unofficial discussions began on Tuesday.
The Riyadh 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.
Peace negotiators in Vienna already agreed that “only the Syrian people can decide the fate of Syria”, the ministry said.
“The ideology, something that’s been instilled in the minds of the people or the society in the Muslim world for decades now, because of the Wahabi institutions, because of the Saudi money that’s been paid to support this kind of dark and resentful ideology”, Assad said.
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Saudi Arabia is a financial and diplomatic backer of the Syrian opposition fighting to oust al-Assad.
