Alongside the plan by the United Nations (UN) envoy to Damascus to freeze the conflict in Aleppo in order to prevent the city from falling into the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Moscow and Cairo are preparing for a conference between the Syrian regime and the opposition in the hope of bringing them together in a transitional government that “fights terrorism.”
It is almost confirmed that Russia will invite the Syrian government and part of the Syrian opposition to a conference in Moscow entitled Moscow I instead of the Geneva III conference. According to news coming out of Moscow, the plan – prepared in coordination between the Russian Foreign Ministry, Egyptian authorities and the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura – calls for inviting two delegations for a dialogue in the Russian capital.
The first is the Syrian government delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Walid al-Muallem. The second delegation will include opposition figures such as former head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, head of the People’s Will Party, former Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil, a number of figures who left the Coalition, the National Coordination Committee and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party headed by Saleh Muslim whose units are fighting ISIS in northern and eastern Syria.