© Sputnik/ Kirill Kallinikov"And by the way, the earth is flat, too!"
The Riyadh-formed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) is the only opposition group that can speak for the Syrian people at UN-mediated peace talks, the Saudi foreign minister said on Thursday.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir, who is in Moscow for a strategic Russia-Arab Gulf dialogue, said
Riyadh and Moscow differed in their views of who Syrians should send to Switzerland for peace talks.
"We... believe that only the Riyadh group can act as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people at the negotiations. In its turn,
Russia thinks that other Syrian groups that want to partake in the talks should be allowed to attend," Jubeir said.
Russia has been calling on the United Nations to invite
Syrian Kurds to the proximity talks. Moscow also supports a
domestic Syrian opposition group based in Hmeymim, in the western Latakia province.
The latest round of intra-Syrian negotiations took place in Geneva on April 13-27. The HNC walked out of the talks citing continuous fighting in Syria and lack of progress on humanitarian issues. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said a new round of talks could be
called after the holy month of Ramadan ends on July 5.
Comment: This man is an idiot. Or a comic genius. Essentially, he's saying that the only legitimate Syrian opposition is a rag-tag bunch of uncompromising, Saudi-backed terrorists, and that truly Syrian domestic opposition is illegitimate. What a nut!
The sane opposition from Hmeymim, in contrast, is actually
willing to talk and not insist on absurdities like "Assad must go", in the hopes of actually
solving the problems, not simply maneuvering for regime change:
The Hmeymim group will support the Syrian opposition Moscow platform's proposal to appoint five vice presidents in Syria's transitional government only as a part of a wider comprehensive peace settlement plan, Tarek Ahmad, a member of the Hmeymim group, told Sputnik on Thursday.
"We will support this or any other proposal only if it includes a comprehensive approach towards solving the Syrian crisis and fulfills the UN Security Council resolution on war on terror and all conditions of Vienna talks rather than only a political aspect of the solution," Ahmad said.
The Moscow platform of the Moscow-Cairo-formed group proposed appointing several vice-presidents, deputies for Syrian President Bashar Assad, during the latest round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva on April 13-27. The arrangement, which enables the formation of a transitional governing body, allegedly received a positive response from UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. The Riyadh-formed High Negotiations Committee opposition delegation, however, ruled out the proposals, saying that Assad must go, and it is the "red line."
"We need to search for a complete package to end the war in Syria. That means that the Saudis, the Turks and the Americans and those who are behind them along with some European states should support fight against terrorism as the Russians always point," Ahmad stressed.
Isn't this the same policy always? such as in Libya today with our constructed 5th column govt ready for another NATO invasion to force itself upon the nation yet again? same as usual... and they are getting pressed for time.