Assad must leave before talks start, says opposition
The main opposition group in Syria says it rejects any role for president Bashar Al Assad post-war and in any UN-sponsored interim period leading to a political transition.
The opposition met in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, with the aim of outlining a unified vision before UN peace talks in Geneva next week.
“The participants stressed that this [the transition] cannot happen without the departure of Bashar Al Assad and his clique at the start of the interim period,” said the communique issued after the meeting.
It went on to say the participants support a UN-based political process that allows Syria to undergo “a radical political transition” from an “authoritarian system” to a democracy where free elections would be upheld. They also blamed the Syrian government for the lack of progress in past talks held in Geneva.
More than 140 representatives from a broad spectrum of the mainstream opposition attended the meeting, including independents and Free Syrian Army military factions.
The statement came as Russia’s president won the backing of Iran and Turkey to host a Syrian peace congress.
Vladimir Putin hosted Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, and the Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday. The Rus-
sian leader has taken a central role in a major diplomatic push to end the civil war in Syria.
Igor Sutyagin, a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute for Defence and Security Studies think tank in London, said the congress was a “tactical move” on the part of Mr Putin.
He said: “The Syrian peace congress will not bring an answer to all questions of the conflict. Russia wants to get rid of any competitors in Syria, in order to secure its previously diminished place in the region … and restore its influence as a world-class power in the Middle East and North Africa.”
The Sochi announcement came days after Mr Putin met Mr Al Assad, an indication that the Syrian leader had agreed to the idea. But there was no word on who would be invited.
The issue is certainly a sticking point, with Turkey adamantly opposed to Syrian Kurdish groups attending or taking part in negotiations, while at the same time supporting Syria’s territorial unity.
“The three organisers do not agree among themselves,” Mr Sutyagin said.
“Turkey wants to wipe out the Kurds. Moscow, however, wants to have a card against Turkey, but they also don’t want to abandon and lose the support of the Kurds.”
Mahir Unal, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, said Ankara was concerned about the prospect of the Syrian opposition – which Turkey has always supported – negotiating with Mr Al Assad “after all these deaths”. But it is even more concerned about any potential threat from Syrian Kurds linking up with the Kurds in Turkey.
In response, Moscow said: “We know that there are reservations on the part of our Turkish partners with regards to the forces they believe pose a threat to their national security.”
In Sochi, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said agreement on who will take part in the congress would require “intense expert work”. He gave no date for the congress.
Meanwhile, Iran – a longtime supporter of Mr Al Assad – will try to turn its hard power and success on the ground into political capital, said Adnan Tabatabai, head of Carpo, a think tank in Germany.
He told The National: “[Iran wants] to ensure that the political reality of Syria’s future will appreciate Iran’s role in defeating ISIL and other terrorist groups.
“Mr Rouhani also said there is no future for foreign actors in Syria unless the Syrian government calls for it, so it leaves a back door open for an Iranian presence in Syria.”
Syria’s opposition insists on ‘a radical political transition’ from an ‘authoritarian system’ to a democracy