Syrian opposition meets to pick delegates

BEIRUT — Syrian opposition figures held meetings in the Saudi Arabian capital on Friday to name a unified delegation that will attend peace talks with the government as a Russian official said the issue of Syrian President Bashar Assad running for office in the future is still under discussion.

The meetings in Riyadh came a day after Syrian opposition representatives called for direct and unconditional negotiations with the Syrian government over the more than six-year civil war that would lead to the launch of a transition period.

The opposition didn’t condition its participation in upcoming UN based negotiations on the departure of President Bashar Assad from office, signalling a degree of flexibility.

The issue has always been the sticking point in previous rounds of talks, deepening division among an already fragmented opposition.

Syrian opposition official Ahmad Ramadan said the opposition will likely name an 11-member delegation later Friday that will lead talks with the government in Geneva next week.

The delegation will include members of the Saudi-based opposition as well as groups based in Egypt and Russia.

“We have agreed with groups based here in Riyadh as well as those in Cairo and Moscow to form a unified delegation to participate in the direct negotiations in Geneva in the coming few days,” leading opposition figure Basma Kodmani told reporters in Riyadh late Thursday.

In Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Friday that the issue of Assad running for office in the future is still under discussion. Assad was elected for a seven-year term in 2014.

Asked about a possibility of an early presidential election in Syria and Assad running in it, Bogdanov said in an interview with RIA Novosti: “This is under the discussion now, the work is ongoing. There are no results yet.”

Russia has always said that the fate of Assad will be decided by the Syrian people while Syrian government officials have said they will not give the opposition in peace talks what they failed to achieve by war.

GETTY IMAGES FILES A Syrian boy looks at a hole in the ground caused by an undetonated rocket following a reported air strike in the rebel-controlled town of Hamouria, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus.