Ibrahimi Welcomes Khatib’s Readiness for Talks, Divided Opposition Meets

 Local Editor

The international envoy to Syria al-Akhdar Ibrahimi welcomed Thursday a proposal by the leader of the so-called "Syrian National Coalition" Ahmad Khatib to engage in talks with government officials.

The UN press service quoted Ibrahimi as saying that he expects a positive response to the initiative from both Khatib's colleagues and Damascus.
In parallel, he underlined the importance of the negotiations in the scope of finding solutions.
"It is worthy of note. Let's see how the government is going to respond and let's see how the colleagues of Moaz Khatib are going to react," Ibrahimi suggested, and noted that "if the UN Security Council bands together, they can make the Geneva Communique working and active."

Khatib's "talks" offer came a day after the international peace envoy for Syria gave a briefing to the UN Security Council.

In Damascus, al-Watan newspaper said Khatib's statement unmasked "the exiled Syrian opposition's divisions" and that the opposition was "unable to adopt a common stance on the crisis and on ways to resolve it". Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition will meet in Cairo.

The so-called Syrian National Council rejected Khatib's proposal outright.

According to the opposition sources, its leader "George Sabra was not scheduled to come to Egypt's meeting (in Egypt) because of other engagements, but he has changed his plans and arrived in Cairo."


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org