DUBAI, November 28 (RIA Novosti) – Syria’s government and its main opposition group confirmed on Thursday that they would take part in a UN-sponsored reconciliation conference to take place in Geneva next year.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that the long-delayed peace conference, initially announced in May, would begin on January 22, 2014. The talks have been repeatedly postponed because the warring sides have been unable to agree on preconditions and the list of participants.
The opposition Syrian National Coalition said in a statement that it “intends to take part” in the Geneva-2 conference, the first direct talks between Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and the opposition since the civil war in Syria began nearly three years ago.
Syria's Foreign Ministry, which has repeatedly expressed its readiness to negotiate, also reiterated its plans in a statement.
But the sides have different expectations for the conference and the discussions therein.
The coalition said its primary goal for the conference was to negotiate a “transitional administration, vested with all authority,” without Assad or his close allies.
Assad’s government, however, ruled out ceding power to anyone.
The Western-backed Free Syrian Army, which fights government forces in Syria, said it was unlikely to attend the peace talks.
“We will negotiate with this regime only after it releases prisoners, hands over the authority to the interim government and announces elections,” Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Meqdad said in an interview with the Voice of Russia radio station.
“We are convinced that the international community has no ways to influence the situation in Syria. The Geneva-2 is only a pretext for making Bashar Assad’s regime last longer,” he said.
