GENEVA, AFP, 30 JAN2016 – Syria’s largest mainstream opposition group said Friday (Jan 29) that it would attend United Nations-led peace talks in Switzerland, easing fears that it would boycott a process aimed at ending the tangled civil war.
The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said it would “take part in the political process to test the seriousness of the other side through discussions with the UN team”, after four days of suspense over whether it would join.
Despite Western pressure to attend, the HNC had previously said it would not take part in the Geneva talks without an agreement on relief reaching hundreds of thousands of people stuck in besieged Syrian towns.
A senior HNC delegate told AFP the Committee will send “about 30, 35 people” to the talks, which got under way on Friday (Jan 29) in the biggest political push yet to end Syria’s almost five-year war.
In a tweet, however, the HNC stressed that the group would be there “to participate in discussions with the UN, not for negotiations”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, France and Saudi Arabia, where the HNC is based, welcomed the late decision to send a delegation.
De Mistura said his preliminary talks with the HNC could happen on either Saturday (Jan 30) or Sunday (Jan 31), telling reporters they would have “some work… certainly on Monday”.
Asaad al-Zoabi, head of the HNC delegation, told Sky News Arabia the group had received the guarantees it wanted from Washington and Saudi Arabia, adding the delegation would arrive Saturday (Jan 30) evening or Sunday (Jan 31) morning.
The HNC did not announce who it would send to Geneva, but it had earlier said that a future delegation would include women and members of religious minorities.
The negotiations would not be face-to-face between the regime and its opponents. Instead they are “proximity talks” where go-betweens shuttle between the different participants.
They are part of an ambitious plan launched in Vienna in November by a raft of key actors including Russia, the United States, Gulf states, Iran and Turkey that foresees elections within 18 months.