Alwaght- Syria's chief negotiator has blamed Western countries and Saudi Arabia for the failure of the latest round of negotiations to restore peace in the country.
Bashar al-Jaafari said the Syrian opposition - supported by Saudi Arabia - was setting a pre-condition of the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as part of discussions.
“The operators of the other parties; I mean, the Saudi authorities and their Western operators do not want Geneva process to succeed…Syria as a state won’t accept any terrorist blackmail that would influence the political course of the Geneva talks,” al-Jaafari noted.
He also censured Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy for Syria, for comments made to Swiss television on Wednesday calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "have the courage" to convince his Syrian counterpart to hold new elections.
"His statement undermined his mandate as a facilitator of the talks, which will affect the entire Geneva process," al-Jaafari said.
He said Mistura had made an "error" in the interview and his mandate as mediator would be reviewed. "Nobody can exert pressure on us," he said.
In response to a question about the coincidence of terrorist attacks increase in Syria with the start of each round of Geneva, al-Jaafari said that the operators of the armed terrorist groups are themselves the operators of the other party in Geneva and have been sending bloody messages to influence the Geneva sessions and events.
He also pointed out that to fight terrorism in a legal way, this requires cooperating with the Syrian government rather than relying on an illegal foreign military presence on the Syrian territory, meaning the illegal US military presence, stressing that the fight against ISIS terrorist organization is a duty of all national forces in Syria.
The previous rounds of negotiations under the auspices of the UN over the past five years have failed to achieve tangible results, mainly due to the Saudi-backed opposition’s insistence that the elected Syrian government cede power.
