Syrian opposition refuses to take part in Geneva peace conference

The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCR) will not participate in the “Geneva-2” peace conference, a source in the NCR press office told Itar-Tass. “So far our position is that we will not participate in the Geneva talks until the Iranian formations and Hezbollah troops are withdrawn from the city of Al Qusayr and the blockade of this and other cities is lifted,” said the opposition representative. The source noted that at the moment the coalition is mainly concerned with the situation in Al Qusayr, but the conditions of the NCR participation in the Geneva-2 conference are not limited to this. According to NCR spokesperson Khalid Saleh, who made a statement for the press in Istanbul, “until killings continue, the international conference to find a political solution to the situation in Syria is meaningless.” On Wednesday evening, the coalition released an official statement concerning the participation in the Geneva-2 conference. It stated that “before embarking on a political settlement process, the international community must address the following questions: stop the killings and destruction made by the regime, to give the authority to the revolutionary forces to defend the oppressed Syrian people, to stop the invasion of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria and expel them from the country.” The NCR also stated that its participation in any conference “is linked with the development of a schedule of work for finding a solution with obligatory international guarantees.” The coalition still continues to insist that Bashar al-Assad should step down and the power should be transferred to a transitional government.