Different countries bringing together their stances on Syrian issue - Kremlin

MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. The Kremlin finds that different countries that are trying to sort out which forces in Syria are the so-called moderate opposition and which - terrorist organisations, are bringing their positions closer, however, differences so far persist, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday. "The efforts are now focused on drawing up the lists - which forces should be regarded as terrorist organisations and which should be regarded as moderate opposition, which can and must participate in the political settlement process (in Syria)," Peskov said. According to him, "This work is not over yet." "There are certain differences between some countries," the Kremlin official said. Peskov added that the states "are now bringing together their stances." "The fate of (Syrian President Bashar) Assad should be discussed by Syrians themselves, not by Russia," he said, answering a question on the possibility of Moscow’s agreement with the Syrian opposition’s proposal that Assad should step down at the beginning of the transitional period of the political settlement. On Thursday, a conference was held in Riyadh at which the Syrian position established a "supreme committee for negotiations" that comprises 32 members. Nine of them represent the Istanbul-based National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCR), five - the National Coordination Committee (NCC, the internal opposition), ten - armed groups and another eight - independent figures. There are four delegates in the committee from the armed opposition’s southern and northern fronts each, and one representative from the Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam Islamic groups each. The supreme committee for negotiations will delegate 15 its members to be engaged in dialogue with the government team under the UN auspices at the beginning of January 2016. The opposition members announced that they would negotiate a transition process based on the Geneva communique of June 30, 2012. They said, however, that President Bashar Assad "must step down right at the beginning of the transitional period." The patriotic factions of the Syrian opposition, which were not invited to the Riyadh meeting or refused to attend it, held their own conference in Damascus under the motto "the homeland’s inner sense." Its participants denounced the "conspiracy of the Saudi ruling circles and external forces against the Syrian people, its army and leadership." Another conference was called by the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Saleh Muslim. In addition to the Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian parties of the north-eastern region, the conference was attended by representatives of the Qamh movement that boycotted the forum in Riyadh. Qamh leader, Haytham Manna, who is one of the leaders of the large opposition coalition Cairo Meeting, expressed solidarity with the Kurds that were not invited to Saudi Arabia. The conference resulted in the creation of the Political Council of the armed formations of the Forces of Democratic Syria. Their backbone is constituted by the Kurdish militias who have distinguished themselves in battles with gunmen of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has criticised the opposition Forum in Riyadh. According to him, the Riyadh conference violates the Geneva-2 agreements, in accordance with which, forces linked with terrorism cannot participate in the political settlement. Read more