MONTREUS: The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the opposition will sit together at the negotiations table in Swiss city of Montreux on Wednesday for the first time since the war began in their country in March 2011 as International peace talks aimed at finding a political solution to the three-year conflict in Syria is being held there.
The talks, known as Geneva II conference, will begin with speeches by the UN Secretary General leader Ban Ki-moon, the US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and is expected to continue in Geneva two days later.
The opposition side as well as representatives of the rest of the about 40 countries and international groups invited to the conference will also speech on the first day of the event.
On Tuesday, the secretary general of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) Badr Jamous said upon his arrival in Switzerland that the opposition delegation has headed into the conference with the aim of removing President Bashar al-Assad from power.
However, the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said that the issues of the president and the regime are red lines for us and for the Syrian people. “Nobody can touch the presidency.”
