Brahimi: No date set for Syria peace talks

U.N.-Arab envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said on Tuesday that no date was set for a long-delayed Syria peace conference in Geneva.

“We were hoping that we’d be in a position to announce a date today, unfortunately we’re not,” Brahimi told reporters following a trilateral meeting with U.S. and Russian officials.

“But we’re still hoping that we'll be able to have the conference before the end of the year,” he said, adding that he would meet again with U.S. and Russian envoys on Nov. 25, AFP reported.

Diplomats have ran into repeated roadblocks. The world powers strongly disagreed on how a future Syrian government would look like.

In the meantime, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not signaled any desire to quit power.

Syria’s opposition National Coalition says it will not participate in the conference unless Assad accepts to resign.

Brahimi said the agreement between world powers is that there should be no preconditions to participating in the talks.

He said the Syrian opposition is facing “internal problems.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also previously accused the National Coalition of running counter to the Geneva communique.

“Among the opposition’s preconditions, I can name Iran’s non-participation in the conference. The second one is that before to go to Geneva the National Coalition should know when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad resigns. And the third precondition is that al-Assad opponents should be armed more actively,” Lavrov said on Tuesday, according to Itar-Tass.

“Russia and the U.S. agreed that the Geneva II Conference should be convened without preconditions, but in compliance with the Geneva communique,” the Russian minister said.

“The National Coalition, which has no support in its creation, is marginalised more and more. Other people have real influence among opponents to [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad,” he added.