SYRIAN FACTIONS MEET IN RIYADH

Saudi Arabia hosts bid to unite opposition groups to end six-year civil war

ASYRIAN opposition meeting began here yesterday to unify the group’s position ahead of peace talks backed by the United Nations to end the country’s six-year civil war.

Saudi Arabia backed the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) group, whose leader former Syrian prime minister Riyad Hijab, resigned on Monday without explanation.

The summit came after a surprise visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Russia a day earlier to meet President Vladimir Putin, who later discussed the conflict with United States President Donald Trump and other Middle East leaders.

Assad had made major gains against opposition forces and Islamic State militants with the help of Russia as well as Iran, the arch-rival of Saudi Arabia, which backed Syrian rebels and had long maintained that Assad should have no role in any transition to bring the war to an end.

UN peace talks mediator Staffan de Mistura urged opposition figures gathered at a fivestar hotel here to have the “hard discussions” necessary to reach a “common line”.

“A strong unified team is a creative partner in Geneva and we need that, one who can actually explore more than one way to arrive to the goals that we need to have,” he said.

It was not clear how Hijab’s absence would affect the talks. Opposition figures said he had taken an uncompromising line that rejected a role for Assad in a UNsponsored peace process.

Some opposition members had hinted that the new communique would drop the long-standing demand by the Riyadh-based main opposition, referring to the next round of UN-sponsored talks.

The summit, which Saudi Arabia called “expanded”, was opened to more than 140 opposition figures from the Turkeybased coalition and mainstream Free Syrian Army factions, as well as independents, including about a dozen women.

The HNC had represented the Syrian opposition at previous Geneva talks, while a number of political opposition groups, backed by countries like Russia and Egypt, also exist. Reuters