Talk of unity govt in Syria delusional, says rebel boss

Chief negotiator for the main Syrian opposition body Mohammed Alloush holds a picture showing a wounded child in the town of Madaya, which is under government siege, during Syrian peace talks in Geneva on Wednesday.

The Syrian opposition's chief negotiator in peace talks in Geneva said on Wednesday he was "not optimistic" about strained efforts to end the nearly five-year war ravaging his country.
Mohammed Alloush, a leading member of the powerful Army of Islam rebel group, told journalists that those pressing to form a unity government with regime members were "delusional."
"Whoever wants us to go into a unity government with these thugs who kill children is delusional," he said, minutes before heading into a meeting with the main opposition grouping, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC).
The HNC was in internal talks on Wednesday morning to discuss its next steps, after a similar and tense meeting the previous evening, an opposition source said.
Asked what the grouping would discuss today, Alloush clutched a picture of a young boy who he said had been severely wounded by Russian air strikes in Syria.
"The problem is not with (UN envoy Staffan) de Mistura. The problem is with the criminal regime that decimates children and with Russia which always tries to stand alongside criminals," Alloush said.
His appointment as chief negotiator has been controversial. Syria's government and Russia regularly refer to the Army of Islam as "terrorists."
Alloush, a stocky man in his 40s, also said Kurdish forces fighting militants in northeast Syria were "a branch of the regime."
He told reporters the HNC would be taking a decision "in two days" but did not specify what that decision was.
HNC head and former Syrian prime minister Riad Hijab was set to arrive in Switzerland on Wednesday, an HNC spokesman said, in a potential sign of fresh momentum after talks faltered on Tuesday.
The UN-brokered talks in the Swiss city are aimed at ending Syria's war, which has killed more than 260,000 people.
Meanwhile, a defiant Russia vowed no let-up of its aerial bombardment in support of the regime. The latest Russian bombings since Moscow threw its military might behind Assad in late September allowed loyalist forces to edge towards breaking a long-running rebel siege on two government-held villages near Aleppo. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that he saw no reason for the air strikes to stop, while slamming "capricious" elements in the HNC and the smuggling of arms from Turkey into Syria. "Russian air strikes will not cease until we truly defeat the terrorist organisations Daesh and Jabhat Al Nusra," Russian agencies quoted Lavrov as saying in Oman.
But the opposition - and Western countries - say that Russia's barrage is almost entirely targeting other rebel groups, many of them backed by the West, Gulf states and Turkey. "Russia is using the political process as a cover to impose its military solution on the ground," Salem Al Meslet from the HNC said.
De Mistura's brief is to coax the warring parties in a conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people into six months of indirect talks in Switzerland under a roadmap agreed by outside powers in November.
Since the conflict began in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad's rule, more than half of Syria's population have fled their homes and for Daesh to expand. The conflict has dragged in a range of players, from Iran, Turkey and the Gulf states to Western nations and Russia. - AFP
De Mistura said on Swiss television late Tuesday that if these talks fail, "all hope would be lost." He told the BBC said that "the level of confidence between the two parties is close to zero".
The HNC wants Assad to allow humanitarian access to besieged towns, to stop bombing civilians and to release thousands of prisoners - some of them children - languishing in regime jails.
Damascus says that the HNC has failed to present even a list of its negotiators and strongly objects to the inclusion within the Saudi-backed body of rebels that it and Moscow view as "terrorists".
One such figure is Mohammed Alloush, a leading member of Islamist rebel group the Army of Islam, in Geneva since Monday and nominally the HNC's chief negotiator, who said Wednesday he was "not optimistic".
"The problem is not with de Mistura. The problem is with the criminal regime that decimates children and with Russia which always tries to stand alongside criminals," he said, clutching a photo of a young boy he said was severely wounded by Russian air strikes.
The HNC was on Wednesday in internal talks in a Geneva hotel - barred to reporters since Tuesday - to discuss its next steps, after a tense meeting the previous evening, an opposition source said.
Western diplomats expressed optimism that Riad Hijab, a former Syrian premier who defected in 2012, could help the HNC present a more united front and be a more acceptable interlocutor for all concerned.
"With Hijab here, the HNC can better demonstrate a unified position in representing the opposition," one said on condition of anonymity ahead of Hijab's expected arrival in Geneva late Wednesday.
 

• MENA