The current opposition negotiating team announced in Saudi Arabia earlier this week includes Saudi-backed Islamic rebel factions like Jaish al-Islam, or the Army of Islam, which are considered terrorists by the Syrian government and Russian Federation.
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George Sabra, a senior opposition official, said the obstacles to the talks were still there, reiterating demands for the lifting of blockades on populated areas and the release of detainees, measures set out in a December 18 Security Council resolution that endorsed the peace process.
The rebels’ statement was signed off by groups including the powerful Jaysh al-Islam, whose politburo member Mohamad Alloush is the chief negotiator on the High Negotiations Committee – a body drawn up by civilian and armed opposition groups after a meeting in Riyadh last month.
At least 30 civilians, including 13 children, were killed in air strikes in eastern Syria on Friday, a monitoring group said.
Muslim, the PYD co-president, described in a telephone interview the team named in Saudi Arabia as a “delegation of Jihadis, Islamists and their allies that do not represent us”.
Kerry said the United States has assured the six countries in the GCC that “the United States, as we have said many times, will stand with them against any external threat and defend, if necessary, together with them against those threats”.
On Thursday Kerry said that the opposing sides won’t initially meet face-to-face in Geneva next week.
Hilal al-Hilal, a senior official in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ruling Baath party, made the comments to state media ahead of scheduled peace talks in Geneva to work on ending Syria’s almost five-year conflict, which has killed more than 250,000 people.
Syrian pro-government forces recaptured the rebel-held town of Rabiya in the western coastal province of Latakia on Sunday, Syrian state television and a Britain-based monitoring group said. It was unclear if those raids were carried out by Russian or regime warplanes. While the US still says Assad can’t lead Syria over the long-term, the Obama administration has backed away from insisting that he go at the start of a transition process.
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IS controls most of Deir el-Zour province and over the past week launched a wide offensive capturing some areas from government forces near the provincial capital city of Deir el-Zour.
