GENEVA, November 26 (RIA Novosti) – Syrian President Bashar Assad will not attend a peace conference in Geneva in January dedicated to ending the nearly three-year-long Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 100,000, a senior Russian diplomat said Tuesday.
“The conference will open at a foreign minister level. Logically, the [Syrian] government’s delegation should be headed by Foreign Minister Walid Muallem,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told reporters after a meeting about Syria between Russian, US and UN officials in Geneva.
“The presidents are not going to come,” he said.
On a request from United Nations special envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brakhimi, the final lists of delegates from the Syrian government and the opposition forces are due to be approved by the end of this year.