DAMASCUS, SYRIA
Syrian President Bashar Assad told the Arab League-U.N. envoy Wednesday that foreign support for the armed opposition must end if anypolitical solution to the country's conflict is to succeed, state-run media said.
Assad's comments to Lakhdar Brahimi during their meeting in Damascus cast further doubt on already sputtering efforts to convene an international peace conference to try to end the country's civil war.
The United States, Russia and the United Nations have been trying for months to bring the Syrian government and the opposition together in Geneva to attempt to negotiate a political resolution to the conflict. After repeated delays, efforts renewed in earnest last month to organize the conference, but the Syrian opposition remains deeply divided over whether to attend, while the government refuses to sit down with the armed opposition.