At the urging of US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Minister William Hague, representatives from the Syrian National Coalition have agreed to attend an 11-nation Friends of Syria conference in Rome on Thursday. The Coalition had initially planned to boycott the meeting in protest of the world’s inaction toward the violence and ever-increasing death toll in Syria. However; Kerry and Hague managed to persuade them at a meeting in London.
“I want our friends in the Syrian opposition council to know that we are not coming to Rome simply to talk. We are coming to Rome to make a decision on next steps,” Kerry said.
Syrian National Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib said on his Facebook page his group would attend after Kerry and Hague “promised specific aid to alleviate the suffering of our people.”
At the same time, opposition leaders have flatly rejected offers from Walid al-Muallem, foreign minister of the Assad regime, to participate in talks between the rebels and the Assad regime in Damascus.
“I am not going to sit down with him (Assad) or with any other member of his clique before all the killing stops, or before the army withdraws from the cities,” Free Syrian Army’s chief of staff Selim Idriss told pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Arabiya.
In London, during his nine-nation tour of US allies in Europe, Kerry empathized with Idriss’ sentiments. “It seems to me that it’s pretty hard to understand how, when you see these Scuds falling on the innocent people of Aleppo, it’s possible to take their notion that they’re ready to have a dialogue very seriously,” he said.
