Syrian opposition struggles to find common

ground in Riyadh
Invitee boycotts talks because 'terrorist' groups are attending, while Islamist rebel faction accuses
organisers of inviting Assad supporters

A rebel fighter stands on a street covered with dust following a reported air strike by Syrian
government forces in the old city of Aleppo in 2014 (AFP)

Wednesday 9 December 2015

Divisions have opened up at the Riyadh-based Syria opposition talks, with recriminations emerging
over the invitation list, although optimism remains that a final joint opposition stance will be agreed.
Hours before the conference was due to resume on Wednesday, one of the key participants criticised
the organisers for inviting delegates seen to be too close to the government of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad.
Ahrar al-Sham, a major component in a key Islamist rebel coalition, released a statement on

Wednesday morning decrying the organisers for inviting people who are closer to representing the
regime than our peoples revolution.
In its statement the group set out five demands going into the negotiations, including the complete
dismantling of Assads security and military apparatus and a guarantee that a post-Assad Syria will not
be partitioned along political or religious lines.
The fifth demand is a guarantee that the Islamic identity of the Syrian people is maintained.
The landmark conference, which began on Tuesday and ends tomorrow, has brought together key
players in the Syrian opposition in hopes of unifying factions opposed to Syrian President Bashar alAssad.
More than 100 delegates from Syrias splintered opposition has been invited to the meeting, the
largest since the start of the conflict in 2011.
The talks take places ahead of a large international drive aimed at trying and end the almost five-year
long conflict. The US is due to host the latest round of peace talks in New York on 18 December,
although the Russian RIA news agency on Wednesday reported that the UN, US and Russia would
hold three-way talks in Geneva on 11 December.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to fly to Moscow next week for talks, in hopes of building
momentum and finding common ground with the Russians who have been long-time supporters of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Tentative progress
Despite controversy over the delegate list, hopes for the landmark conference in Riyadh remained
high, with the head of the Syrian National Coalition Khalid Khoja calling the talks decisive.
Just hours after the talks began, sources told Al-Jazeera that delegates had agreed that the main aim
of negotiations should be establishing a civil, rather than a military or theocratic, state in Syria.

Khaled Khoja is the current President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (AFP)

Of a total of 104 political and military leaders invited, only two declined to attend.
One of them, Haytham Munaa who founded the Current for Civic Rights and Values in May 2015
said the groups members had voted to withdraw from the conference because it would mean
working alongside groups accused of terrorism.
In a column for Arabic-language daily al-Rai al-Yaum on Tuesday, Munaa also wrote that the decision
to exclude the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had led his group to boycott the talks.

Kurds meet in Syria

Key Kurdish opposition groups that have played a major role in military successes against both
Islamic State and forces loyal to Assad, such as the Democratic Union Party (PYD), were not invited to
the conference.
Instead, Kurdish groups gathered in the north-eastern Syrian town of al-Malikiyeh on Tuesday for
their own separate two-day conference called the Syrian Democratic Conference.
Participants included members of Syria's leading Kurdish movement, the Democratic Union Party
(PYD), which has been excluded - along with its armed affiliate - from the Riyadh conference.
"The forces that defended the people, suffered the events in Syria and remained on the ground are
those most deserving to solve the crisis in Syria, without any interference from the interests of
regional powers," Wael Mirza, an Assyrian representative at the Syria conference, said at the start of
the talks.
During the second day of talks in al-Malikiyeh on Wednesday, delegates voted to establish a new body
called the Democratic Syria Assembly to act as the official representative of the Syrian Democratic
Forces, an alliance of mainly Kurdish, Assyrian and Turkmen fighters created in October to fight
government forces and IS.

Posted by Thavam