A meeting of over one hundred representatives of the Syrian opposition and anti-government armed groups operating in Syria that were invited by Saudi Arabia has completed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Moscow recognises the efforts by Saudi Arabia to implement the mandate it received this November 14 from the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) to convene in Riyadh a conference bringing together the Syrian opposition from across the spectrum for working out a single negotiating platform and forming a representative delegation for the upcoming talks with the Syrian Government. In this context, the Foreign Ministry notes that the opposition representatives assembled in Riyadh agreed in the outcome documents to take part in the intra-Syrian political process based upon the June 30, 2012 Geneva Communique, while continuing to insist on a number of preconditions that contradict the very spirit and letter of this sole internationally recognised and UNSC-approved political platform for resolving the Syrian crisis. Any agreements on a political settlement can only come as a result of the Syrian Government and the opposition reaching mutual consent.
The Foreign Ministry notes that despite the efforts of our Saudi colleagues, the meeting participants in Riyadh were nowhere near representative of the Syrian opposition, and this lack of representation did not fail to impact the very content of the meeting’s final statement. For instance, Kurdish groups, such as the Democratic Union Party, and local self-government bodies from northern Syria, were not represented. Faced with opposition from Turkey, the organisers did not invite them. Otherwise, Ankara would have prevented the Istanbul-based National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces from attending the conference.