Syrian opposition may participate in Geneva

The main task is to bring to the negotiating table the Syrian government and those opposition forces that are concerned about the fate of their country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. Speaking about the possible timeframe of the Geneva-2 conference on Syria, Lavrov said “We expect to convene it in mid-November”. As for representatives of the Syrian opposition, he said “We expected that our western partners, who had committed themselves to bring the opposition to that conference would be able to do it rather quickly”. “I do not rule out that the armed opposition, if they do not take up extremist or terrorist positions, may be represented there quite probably that President Bashar al-Assad spoke about,” the Russian foreign minister told a news conference after the talks with Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (IOC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in the Russian capital of Moscow on Tuesday. “So, this is a matter of those who have a larger influence on the opposition than we have,” he added. “We are working with all parties, but our Western partners and key countries in the Middle Eastern region have a major influence on the opposition,” Lavrov noted.