Opposition says Lavrov supports Transitional Governing Body

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov assured to the key Opposition president his support to a transitional governing body,  Zaman Alwasl’s sources quoted Mr. Ahmad Assi Al Jarba saying.

National Coalition  opposition chief  is to visit Moscow on Tuesday at the invitation of Russian authorities, AFP said.

"Mr. Jarba has accepted the Russian invitation and will go to Moscow on February 4," Monzer Aqbiq, head advisor to the leader of the Syrian National Coalition, told AFP.

Diplomats say to  Reuters that Syria's regime  may  have  madelegitimizing blunder by turning up at peace talks in Geneva since it had little to gain, little room for maneuver and may have started down a slippery slope by legitimizing its opponents,.

But its chief sponsor, Russia, is keen to see a peace deal take shape, so it cannot leave..

Diplomats say the real pressure on Syria comes from its ally Russia, which organized the talks jointly with the United States, and which Syria cannot afford to turn its back on.

Marc Finaud, an expert on arms control and Middle East diplomacy at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy,  said Russia's main objective was to maintain its status as a world power by showing, as in recent deals on handing over Syria's chemical weapons and curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions, that "nothing can be done without Russia".

It also wanted to maintain its strategic objectives within Syria, including a naval base and arms sales, he said. But, like Syria's other major ally, Iran, it was not clinging to supporting Assad himself, Finaud said.

The government delegation has drawn a "red line" around Assad, saying that his role is not called into question by the document that serves as the basis of talks.

But the opposition say the net will gradually close on the president, since the transitional governing body that the talks aim to establish requires both sides' consent.

"That means both parties have a veto. So we will put a veto over Bashar and the close circle around him. And of course they will put a circle around some of the names that we will propose," said opposition spokesman Anas al-Abdah, Reuters reported.

The government is expected to try to provoke splits in opposition ranks and to spin the talks out as long as possible to discredit their foes as a negotiating force.

"They will try and try. We'll be very patient. We'll be extremely patient, and we'll wait until we drag them kicking and screaming into this negotiation," said Abdah.

If the two sides move on from the rhetorical sparring and start talking in earnest, they could find common ground in fighting a common enemy - foreign Islamist fighters who are not represented at the Geneva talks, Finaud said.