BEIRUT / MOSCOW: A proposed round of meetings in Moscow next month to discuss a solution to the Syrian conflict has prompted opposition groups – both from the anti-regime National Coalition to so-called “tolerated” parties based in Syria – to flock to Cairo for a series of consultations.
Hadi Bahra, the head of the National Coalition, said Friday as he headed for the Egyptian capital that his group would be discussing a range of topics, including the “Moscow conference and a dialogue conference [by opposition groups] in Cairo,” as well as U.N. envoy Staffan di Mistura’s plan to “freeze” fighting in the city of Aleppo that he said should be part of an overarching political settlement to end the conflict.
“We’ve asked Russia to be one of the countries that support Syrian-Syrian dialogue,” Bahra said, indicating that the coalition was prepared to talk to all sides, provided that they agree on the objective of a political transition.
Bahra said the dialogue among various strands of the opposition “doesn’t mean that we differ over our vision and the ultimate objective of a political transition to democracy and pluralism; everyone agrees on this. We differ on the vision of how to arrive at this.”
He also pointed to a likely sticking-point, namely an insistence on President Bashar Assad’s replacement by a transitional executive body with full powers, as stipulated by the “Geneva I” document of 2012.