Head of Syrian Opposition Refuses to Participate in Moscow Negotiations

MOSCOW, January 5 (Sputnik) — A major Syrian political opposition bloc is not going to participate in negotiations which to be held in Moscow with Syrian government representatives, the head of the alliance said in an official statement Monday.

According to Khaled Khoja, the political bloc has ties to all sides of Syrian opposition. However, dialogue between the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCSROF) and Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime will not be possible until political transition of power is achieved.

Khoja was elected president of the NCSROF on Sunday, winning 56 votes of the 106 cast during a closed meeting in Istanbul.

In early December, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said that Russia is ready to host initial talks between all parties of the Syrian conflict. The diplomat noted that the talks could take place in the Russian capital before the end of January.

Two previous rounds of reconciliation talks, held in Geneva in 2012 and January 2014 involving the Syrian government, opposition representatives and international mediators, failed to produce a practical solution to end the violence.

The Syrian civil war began in 2011 following an anti-government uprising. For over 3 years the Syrian Army has been fighting various insurgency groups, including the Islamic State. The war has taken over 200,000 lives and more than 3.2 million people have been forced to flee the country, according to UN estimates.