Delegates from Syrian opposition and rebel groups agreed in Riyadh on Thursday to bring together political and armed factions in a single body in preparation for possible peace talks with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
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But Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi academic who moderated the meetings, said afterward that the representative of the group had not known about the statement and had signed the final agreement anyway – suggesting a split between the group’s political officials and its hard-line base.
The Riyadh group also “called for the worldwide community to compel Assad to implement confidence building measures, including a stop of executions, halt of regime sieges on towns to allow humanitarian aid to enter, and the release of political prisoners”, and also halt his forced displacement of Syrian populations, as well as his use of indiscriminate “barrel bomb” weapons against civilian areas.
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.
It would see a transitional government set up within six months and elections held within 18 months, and calls for negotiations between the opposition and Assad s regime by January 1. Furthermore “Russia now, in Syria, they are defending Europe directly”, Assad concluded.
Assad said his government was “ready today to start the negotiations with the opposition”, but suggested that he would refuse to talk to the armed groups.
Ahrar al-Sham, a Saudi-backed ultraconservative group that operates mainly in northern Syria, said in a statement that it was withdrawing also because the conference failed to “confirm the Muslim identity of our people”.
Their common front grows out of a plan put forward in Vienna last month by the International Syria Support Group, which includes the United Nations, the USA, the European Union, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries.
War-weary Syrians can only hope.
At the same time, Hollande and Putin agreed on exchanging intelligence on the Islamic State and other rebel groups to improve the effectiveness of their aerial bombing campaigns, and the French president said they had agreed to target only Islamic State and similar jihadi groups in Syria. Already, more than 100 leaders have formed an array of bloc groups and have created a high commission to oversee negotiations with the Assad government, independent of the Saudi government.
Assad told EFE that Saudi Arabia, the US and some Western countries “want terrorist groups to join the negotiations table”.
“I welcome the Riyadh Conference’s commitment to a unified and pluralistic Syria and its rejection of terrorism in all its forms”, he said.
“The suburbs of Damascus, many are still in rebel hands”.
But the opposition demand for Assad to go “is of course unacceptable to the regime”, said Pierret.
But sources inside the talks and Western diplomats said it subsequently signed on to the agreement, though this could not immediately be confirmed.
Kerry had welcomed the accord as an “important step”, although he said it had some “kinks” that needed working out and “difficult work” remained to forge a peace deal.
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Excluded from the talks in Riyadh was a force with which the Pentagon has collaborated closely in attacking ISIS in Syria, the Kurdish YPG (Peoples’ Protection Unit) militia.
