UN-brokered talks aimed at ending Syria's brutal conflict will push ahead until April 27, despite the departure of the main opposition group, negotiators said today.
Syria's main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) earlier this week halted its formal participation in the round of talks that began in Geneva on April 13 in frustration over surging violence on the ground.
But the group's spokesman Salem al-Meslet told AFP today that UN mediator Staffan de Mistura had decided the talks would continue through next Wednesday, and said that "if we see major and serious steps on the ground" the delegation might return to the negotiating table.
Another opposition group close to Moscow, which is deemed more acceptable by the Syrian government, meanwhile said it would remain in Geneva through April 27 and would meet with de Mistura after the weekend.
Qadri Jamil, co-president of the so-called Moscow Group and Syria's former deputy premier, told AFP there was no reason to halt the talks over the departure of the HNC, an umbrella group comprising the main Syrian opposition and rebel factions that came together in Riyadh in December.
"The Riyadh delegation is one of the delegations participating in Geneva, and the idea that this delegation is the chief one participating... Should be erased," he said, speaking in Arabic.
Earlier this week the regime's chief representative in Geneva, Bashar al-Jaafari, slammed the HNC decision as "absurd theatre" and said "the talks will not lose anything" due to its departure.
That view was echoed today by Damscus's key backer Russia.
"Probably no one loses but them if they leave the negotiations," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Armenia.
Following a meeting with de Mistura today, Jaafari told reporters his delegation was scheduled to meet the UN envoy again Monday morning, while a source close to the delegation said it would remain in Geneva "until Wednesday at least.
