Chief Syrian opposition group heads to join peace talks as uninvited Kurds return home

The main Syrian opposition delegation left Saudi Arabia for Switzerland on Saturday, however it remained unclear whether the delegation would actually participate in U.N.-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending Syria’s civil war.

The indirect peace talks began here Friday with a meeting between the United Nations envoy and the Syrian government delegation. The main opposition group, the Higher Negotiations Committee or HNC, boycotted that session saying it won’t take part until a set of preliminary demands are met: releasing detainees, ending the bombardment of civilians by Russian and Syrian forces, and lifting government blockades on rebel-held areas.

The HNC later agreed to send a delegation to Geneva to meet with U.N. officials, while still insisting it would not negotiate until their demands are met. The HNC decision to send a team to Geneva gave a glimmer of hope that peace efforts in Syria might actually get off the ground for the first time since two earlier rounds of negotiations collapsed in 2014.

Meanwhile, officials from Syria’s largest Kurdish group left Geneva Saturday after being excluded from the negotiations, a Kurdish official and opposition figures said.

Saleh Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, left when it became clear he would not be invited to participate, according to Kurdish official Nawaf Khalil.

The participation of the PYD has been a divisive issue in advance of the Geneva talks. Turkey, which has struggled with its own large Kurdish population, considers the PYD a terrorist organization and the HNC claims they are too close to the Syrian government.

Unlike other groups from outside the HNC that were invited as advisers, the PYD received no invitation from U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura.

The move to exclude the PYD angered Qadri Jamil, a former Syrian deputy prime minister who has become a leading opposition figure but is not part of the HNC. Jamil said the PYD’s military wing has been the most effective force on the ground in Syria fighting the Islamic State group.

“The PYD is a historic part of the Syrian democratic opposition and PYD today is fighting terrorism on the ground and it is a main force,” Jamil told a group of journalists in Geneva on Saturday.

Jamil said they are working with the U.N. to resolve the crisis regarding the representation of the PYD.

Bassam Bitar of the opposition’s Movement for a Pluralistic Society said the PYD will most likely be invited to take part in future rounds of negotiations.

Saturday’s developments gave a glimmer of hope that peace efforts in Syria might actually get off the ground for the first time since two earlier rounds of negotiations collapsed in 2014.

The conflict has killed at least 250,000 people, forced millions to flee the country, and given an opening to the Islamic State group to capture territory in Syria and Iraq. It has drawn in U.S. and Russia, as well as regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

De Mistura said he had “good reason to believe” the HNC would join the talks Sunday but refused to react formally until he got an official notice from its leadership.

“As you can imagine, I have been hearing rumors and information already,” de Mistura told reporters after meeting with the delegation led by Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari.

“What I will react to – that’s why I said I have reasons to believe – I will only react when I get a formal indication of that,” de Mistura said, “But that is a good signal.”

Speaking almost simultaneously at a hotel across town, HNC member Farah Atassi told reporters its delegation would arrive Saturday only to talk to U.N. officials about its demands after receiving some reassurances from the U.N., but “not to negotiate.”

The decision came after many Western powers and Saudi Arabia – a major backer of the group – had pushed hard for the HNC to attend, diplomats said.

Disputes have arisen over which opposition parties will attend, with the HNC coming under criticism for including the militant Army of Islam group, which controls wide areas near the capital of Damascus, and is considered a terrorist organization by the Syrian government and Russia.

Opposition figures from outside the HNC also are in Geneva, but they were invited as advisers.

The meetings, billed as multiparty talks, are part of a process outlined in a U.N. resolution last month that envisions an 18-month timetable for a political transition in Syria, including the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

De Mistura has decided that these will be “proximity talks,” rather than face-to-face sessions, meaning that he plans to keep the delegations in separate rooms and shuttle in between. He has tamped down expectations by saying he expects talks to last for six months.

U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi reflected the chaos and confusion earlier in the day when he told reporters that “I don’t have a time, I don’t have the exact location, and I can’t tell you anything about the delegation.”

The initial refusal of the HNC to attend was slammed by Syria’s official Tishrin newspaper as reflecting “the collective flight of terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey from the political table, following their collapses on the battlefield.”

Ja’afari, the Syrian envoy, declined to speak to reporters as he left the meeting with de Mistura.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the moderate opposition was not attending because Russia continues to bomb rebel-held areas in Syria, and that it is a “betrayal” to the moderates to ask them to attend without a cease-fire.

Qadri Jamil, a former Syrian deputy prime minister who has become a leading opposition figure but is not part of the HNC, told The Associated Press that the priority was to allow aid into besieged areas.

A Western diplomat in close contact with the SNC said in Geneva that the HNC’s “main message to us has been, ‘while we are under sustained attack by Russia and the regime and other states and militants and other groups, we cannot justify to Syrians why we are going.’ ” The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters on behalf of the opposition.

Reflecting the growing outside military presence in Syria, the Dutch government said Friday it plans to join the U.S.-led coalition targeting the Islamic State group in Syria with airstrikes.

The Dutch have for months been carrying out airstrikes in neighboring Iraq, but have balked at extending the mission to Syria. But after requests from the U.S. and France, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s two-party coalition government decided to broaden the mandate to eastern Syria.

Syrians trapped in the besieged town of Madaya are continuing to die of starvation despite shipments of aid this month, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said.

The town northeast of Damascus has been blockaded by government and allied militias for months and drew international attention when photos of emaciated children were published.

Citing local health workers, the group said 16 people have died there since three aid convoys arrived earlier this month.

Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 7:05 AM with the headline "Chief Syrian opposition group heads to join peace talks as uninvited Kurds return home."