BERLIN: Syrian National Coalition has agreed to attend the US-led friends of Syria conference scheduled in Rome next month, two days after the coalition announced to withdraw international meetings in protest at the world’s silence over the mounting civilian death toll in Syria.
Syria’s opposition reversed its decision to boycott the Rome meeting that would focus on the two-year Syrian conflict after US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Secretary William Hague made an appeal to its members at a joint press conference in London.
The spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition Walid Bunni told media on Monday that umbrella group’s members had changed their minds about boycotting the meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria, following promises from US and allied figures that they would increase aid to the rebels.
Bunni said the rebels would go to Rome “and we will see if the promises are different this time.”
US Vice President Joe Biden welcomed the opposition’s change of heart on the talks in Rome, where they would meet with Kerry, and said it would be an important opportunity to find ways to support the Syrian people.
Biden commended the decision and affirmed the US commitment to “a political transition in Syria to a democratic and inclusive post-Assad government,” the White House said in a statement.
Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said in Moscow on Monday that the government was prepared to talk with the opposition, including armed rebels.
“We are ready for dialogue with all who want dialogue, including those who are carrying arms,” he said, the first time a senior official of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime made such a proposal.
“We still believe in a peaceful solution to the Syrian problem,” said Muallem, proposing the creation of a government coalition that would negotiate with both the “external and internal opposition.”
But Selim Idriss, the rebel Free Syrian Army’s chief of staff, dismissed Muallem’s offer, saying “I am not going to sit down with him (Assad) or with any other member of his clique before all the killing stops, or before the army withdraws from the cities,” Idriss said.
DND
