Representatives of the Syrian National Coordination Committee, an internal opposition bloc, will arrive in Moscow on a three-day visit later on Monday, a Syrian opposition representative in Moscow, Adel Ismail, has said.
The delegation will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, his deputy and presidential envoy to the Middle East, Mikhail Bogdanov, as well as Mikhail Margelov, the presidential envoy to Africa, and Alexei Pushkov, who heads the Russian parliamentary committee on foreign affairs.
“Opposition representatives are going to discuss the situation in crisis-hit Syria, ways out of this crisis and the role of Russia in this process,” Ismail said.
Last week, Lavrov held talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Moscow.
Late on Sunday, a six-man advance team of United Nations monitors arrived in Damascus to oversee a ceasefire between government and opposition forces that has been in place since Thursday, CBS reported. They are expected to be joined by two dozen more observers in coming days, in line with a UN Security Council resolution adopted on Saturday.
The Security Council unanimously agreed on Saturday to send a group of 30 unarmed observers to Syria. According to the document, the mission may be subsequently expanded to include some 250 monitors.
The ceasefire is part of a peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, which is designed to end the 13-month unrest that has claimed more than 9,000 lives, according to UN estimates.
