In another sign of stubbornness, the tyrant regime of Syria on Saturday said the ouster of President Bashar Assad remains a “red line,” just two days ahead of renewed talks to put an end to the war.
The UN-brokered talks are the latest push by the international community to find a solution to Syria’s five-year war, which has left more than 270,000 people dead.
The fate of Assad would not be on the negotiating table, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told a Damascus news conference.
“We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar Assad is a red line,” Muallem said. He said the government’s delegation would travel to Switzerland on Sunday, but would leave if the opposition did not show up within 24 hours.
UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said the meetings in Geneva would not last more than 10 days.
The negotiations would cover the formation of a new government, a fresh constitution, and UN-monitored presidential and parliamentary elections within 18 months, the envoy said.
But Muallem said that de Mistura had “no right” to discuss future presidential elections or any agenda items. “Neither he nor anyone else, whoever they may be, has the right to discuss presidential elections,” insisted Muallem. “This right is exclusively for the Syrian people.”
“Then we will have a referendum for the Syrian people to decide on it,” he said, adding that a federal division of Syria was not an option.
Separately, Syrian rebels and a group monitoring the conflict said insurgents had shot down a warplane over western Syria on Saturday, although there were conflicting accounts on whether it had been brought down by a missile or anti-aircraft guns.
The Syrian Observatory said a rebel group had brought down the jet in Hama province by firing two heat-seeking missiles, saying the plane was most probably Syrian. But a rebel group operating in the area, Jaish Al-Nasr, said it had brought down the jet with anti-aircraft guns.
Source: Arab News