Syrian Opposition Committee Denies Getting Invitation to Intra-Syrian Talks

The National Coordination Committee (NCC), which opposes Syrian President Bashar Assad, has not received an invitation to the next round of intra-Syrian talks in Switzerland's Geneva, the head of the NCC told Sputnik on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In late December, the press service of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said in a statement that a target date for the next round of intra-Syrian negotiations was January 25, 2016.

"We have not received an invitation [to the next round of talks in Geneva]. The situation will be more clear this evening [later on Thursday]," Hassan Abdel Azim said.

He added that the peace process is moving toward the implementation of the decisions reached at the negotiations in Vienna, aimed at ending the Syrian civil war, including a definition of national unity, the need to defeat extremist groups and to provide assistance to refugees, as well as forming an interim unity government, while stipulating that elections in Syria should be held within 18 months.

Syria has been in a state of a civil war since political protests in 2011 escalated into an armed conflict. Government forces have been fighting on multiple fronts, against moderate opposition factions and numerous extremist insurgent groups.

In November, shortly after the Syrian talks in Vienna, the International Syria Support Group, an international format aimed at resolving the Syrian issue, was formed, in particular, to boost the intra-Syrian talks between the opposition and government forces.

Since the start of the conflict in Syria, Geneva has hosted two rounds of UN-brokered talks between representatives of the Syrian authorities and the opposition. The Geneva negotiations failed to yield any significant results.