Key Opposition Figure Rejects Russian-Led Bid for New Peace Talks
A key Syrian opposition figure, Moaz al-Khatib, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to participate in a Russian-led bid for new talks to end the conflict, AFP reports.
“The conditions we believe are necessary for success have not been met, neither has the call for the [end of the] shelling and killing of our people been heard,” the former leader of the main opposition Syrian National Coalition said in an online post.
“While we do not reject the prospect of any future meeting with a regime delegation, we would require the regime to release the detainees, especially the women and children,” he added.
Khatib’s statement comes four days after the newly elected head of Syria’s opposition in exile National Coalition said that his group had ruled out participation in the talks.
Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, has invited 28 opposition figures to Moscow in an attempt to relaunch talks between regime delegates and members of the fractured opposition.
Two rounds of U.N.-led talks between the Syrian government and opposition leaders failed to arrive at a political solution, with both sides unable to come to a consensus over the fate of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The rise of extremist groups like the Islamic State has complicated matters further.
At Least 2,100 Died in Syrian Prisons in 2014, MonitorIng Group Claims
“At least 2,100 people died in Syrian prisons last year and the bodies of many showed signs of torture, “ Reuters reports, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The monitoring group claims the death toll could be significantly larger because they had only reported cases where family members had received a death certificate from a prison.
“The prisons tell the families that the prisoners died of natural causes, such as a heart attack,” according to Observatory head Rami Abdulraham.
The U.N. said in March that heads of intelligence branches and detention facilities were on the list of potential suspects of torture, killing and starvation in Syrian prisons.
The statement came following a report published in January 2014 of what former war crimes prosecutors say is “direct evidence’” of the brutal torture of detainees by Assad’s security forces from March 2011 to August 2013. The images were smuggled out of Syria by a former military police photographer who defected and was given the code name Caesar.
Photo Courtesy of AP Images
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