Syria's armed opposition in a statement posted on YouTube yesterday
said Geneva II peace conference in no more than a conspiracy on the Syrian
people.
19 factions, including the Islam Army and Ahrar al-Sham
assured their refusal for any solution will keep Bashar al-Assad or his security
regime in the power.
The Geneva II conference on Syria is scheduled for
November 23 and 24 and will attempt to get Syria’s rival sides to agree on a
transitional government in that country based on a plan adopted in Geneva in
June 2012.
It remains unclear whether the divided Syrian
opposition will attend the talks next month, which have been put off repeatedly
in the past, in part because of fundamental disagreements over Bashar Assad’s
fate.
The US and Russia have been trying to bring the
Damascus regime and Syria’s divided opposition to the negotiating table for
months, but the meeting has been repeatedly delayed and it remains unclear
whether either side is really willing to hold talks while the war is deadlocked.
The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian
National Coalition, has said in the past that it will only negotiate if it is
agreed from the start that Assad will leave power at the end of a transition
period. Many rebel fighters inside Syria flatly reject negotiating with Assad’s
regime.
The government, meanwhile, has refused to talk with
the armed opposition, which it refers to as “terrorists,” and has rejected
demands that Assad leave power, saying he will stay at least until the end of
his term in mid-2014, and will decide then whether to seek re-election.
The Western-backed SNC is scheduled to meet November 1
to discuss the matter further.
Syria’s conflict, now into its third year, has left
over 115,000 dead. It has devastated the economy and the country’s delicate
social fabric. It has caused 5 million Syrians to flee their homes to other
places within the country, and driven another 2 million abroad.
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