Key Syrian group will not join talks

Cites air raids and failed ceasefire as reasons for boycott

BEIRUT // Key Syrian rebel group Ahrar Al Sham said yesterday it would not take part in peace talks between the regime and opposition factions in the Kazakh capital of Astana next week.

The group decided not to participate in the negotiations that start on Monday because of “the lack of implementation of the ceasefire” in force since December 30 and continuing Russian air raids over Syria, it said. The decision came as the Russian defence ministry said its aircraft had joined forces with Turkish jets for the first time to target ISIL militants holding the town of Al Bab, about 40 kilometres north-east of Aleppo.

Lt Gen Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian defence ministry official, said the operation had been conducted in agreement with the Syrian government. Ahrar Al Sham was among the rebel factions that signed the ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and Turkey last month.

The group said “the regime’s offensive against our people in Wadi Barada”, an area 15km north- west of Damascus and the capital’s main source of water, was among the reasons it would not attend the talks. Mr Al Assad’s forces have pressed an assault to retake the area from rebels after mains supplies were cut last month, leaving 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs without water.

Ahrar Al Sham said it would support decisions taken by other rebel groups represented at the Astana talks if they were “in the interest of the nation”. Mohammad Alloush, a prominent figure of the Jaish Al Islam (Army of Islam) rebel faction, will head a delegation of about eight people at the Astana talks, backed by nine legal and political advisers from the opposition High Negotiations Committee umbrella group. Syria’s United Nations ambassador, Bashar Al Jaafari, will head the government delegation.

Also yesterday, Iran said it was strongly opposed to the United States joining the Astana talks on Monday.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, which oversees international coordination on the Syrian war, confirmed that Iran refused to invite the US.

“There is no reason for the US to participate in the organising of political initiatives in the Syrian crisis and it is out of the question that they should have a role in the Astana negotiations,” he said, according to the official Irna news agency.

The other two organisers of the talks – Russia and Turkey – said the new US administration of Donald Trump should be represented in Astana.

‘ There is no reason for the US to participate in the organising of political initiatives in the Syrian crisis Ali Shamkhani secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council