Disparate Syrian opposition groups, including several Islamist rebel representatives, met for the first time in the Spanish city of Cordoba to seek common ground ahead of peace talks with President Bashar al-Assad’s government later this month.
After nearly three years of conflict the opposition has fractured into competing groups with different regional backers and the West is pushing to gather a unified body of opposition members to attend negotiations on January 22, dubbed “Geneva 2”.
Prospects for progress at the talks in Switzerland appear dim. Assad, buttressed by recent military gains and a wave of rebel infighting, has flatly ruled out demands from the weakened opposition that he stand aside.
The two-day meeting in Spain brings together members of the Western-backed National Coalition but also delegates from opposition groups inside Syria that are tolerated by Assad as they do not call for his removal – and are therefore distrusted by many exiled opposition members.
“Most colours from Syria are represented here. There is even one person from Syrian security who supports Assad,” said veteran dissident Kamal Labwani.
Assad has little reason to make concessions
At least three members of the Islamic Front had also come, he said. The front is made up of several Islamist brigades which represent a large portion of fighters on the ground and reject the authority of the National Coalition.
“We want them to be here. We will listen to them,” Labwani said. Differences between the delegates were too deep to bridge at the meeting, he added, but it would aim to create a dialogue among them.
Diplomats say the gathering is recognition that the divided National Coalition – which has yet to formally accept an invitation to attend Geneva 2 – is losing influence on the ground and a more comprehensive grouping is needed ahead of the talks. Rebels from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army were also at the meeting in Cordoba, a venue chosen by the Spanish government because of its historical importance as the capital of the Islamic caliphate during the 10th and 11th centuries AD.
Delegates, including the rebel representatives, toured Cordoba’s Mezquita, a medieval mosque encompassed by a cathedral.
A representative from Liwa al-Islam, a brigade that works with the Islamic Front, said he was attending the meeting but gave no further details of his role.
Opposition figure Fawaz Tello, one of the meeting’s organisers, said Cordoba was prepared three months ago to encompass the “whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition. To sit together and define a mutual vision”.
“This is not for the election of another leadership or to decide the delegates for Geneva,” he said.
Assad’s forces have recently been gaining ground against rebel fighters backed by the opposition and he faces little pressure to make concessions. At the same time, radical Islamists distrusted by the West have taken a bigger role in the campaign to oust Assad. “We are gathered here today despite our different views to try and reach a consensus that can save our people,” Sheikh Moham-med al-Yacoubi, an opposition Muslim cleric, said.