The Syrian government said Wednesday that it will attend United Nations peace talks to resolve the country’s civil war in January, but reiterated that President Bashar Assad has no intention of giving up power.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Wednesday agreeing to attend the United Nations-sponsored peace talks in Geneva on Jan 22., but only to meet with those “who support a political solution for Syria’s future,” the Associated Press reports.
The meeting would be the first time Assad’s government sat down with opposition groups since the civil war began almost three years ago. Both Syrian opposition members and its Western supporters call for a transitional government without Assad.
But Assad’s government threw cold water on that prospect.
“Our people will not allow anyone to steal their right to decide their future and leadership and the main goal of the Geneva conference is to fulfill the interests of the Syrian people alone, and not those who shed their blood,” the statement said.
The central Western-backed opposition group said it’s prepared to meet, but is asking Assad’s government to release political prisoners and open humanitarian corridors before it makes a final decision. Previous attempts to coordinate negotiation talks between Syrian government and the opposition have failed over who should attend and whether Assad should remain in power.
Also on Wednesday, at least 17 rebels were killed, along with an unknown number of Assad supporters, in a battle near opposition-held suburbs east of Damascus, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
[AP]