Damascus Rejects Political Transition Without Assad

Damaskus, 5 Jumadil Akhir 1437/14 March 2016 (MINA) – Syria has 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 peace 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 peace talks 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, the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted him as saying.

He reiterated that setting preconditions would contradict the fundamentals of the United Nations-brokered peace talks.

Ja’afari’s remarks came after HNC chief negotiator Mohammad Alloush said 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 is scheduled to begin on Monday. The 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. According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has 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. (T/P002/R07)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)