Damascus Rejects Conditioned Talks

Local Editor

Syria rejected a demand by a Saudi-backed opposition group to discuss a political transition without Syrian President Bashsar al-Assad, saying setting such a precondition for the talks only ends them in failure.

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations and head of the government delegation Bashar al-Ja'afari made the comments on Sunday upon his arrival in the Swiss city of Geneva for participating in the second round of the talks that are scheduled to start on Monday with the main Syrian opposition group, the so-called High Negotiations Committee [HNC.]

"We are still in the preparatory stage, as I said, and talking about essential issues that touch a symbol of the sovereignty in Syria" is aimed at "moving out" from the good negotiation manners and "a feverish endeavor" to make the second round of talks a failure."

Al-Ja'afari further reiterated that setting preconditions would contradict the fundamentals of the United Nations-brokered talks.

Meanwhile, his remarks came after HNC chief negotiator Mohammad Alloush earlier stated on Saturday that the transitional period "should start with the fall, or death," of the Syrian president as a prerequisite for any deal.

The new round of negotiations would resume after talks collapsed early in February after the Saudi-backed opposition left the talks amid the Syrian army's Russian-backed gains against militants on several fronts.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011, which claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country's pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team