Report: Syria government to send teams to peace talks
November 27, 2013 -- Updated 1150 GMT (1950 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: The Free Syrian Army says it will not attend
- The first peace talks in Geneva occurred in June 2012
- Other attempts at talks have been delayed since
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Syria plans to send a delegation to Switzerland early next year to participate in peace talks, but the opposition Free Syrian Army says it will pass.
The United Nations announced that the often-delayed "Geneva II" conference aimed at ending the Syrian civil war starts January 22 in Geneva.
"At long last and for the first time, the Syrian government and opposition will meet at the negotiation table rather than the battlefield," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at a news conference Monday.
Ban may have been referring to other opposition groups. The Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay al-Mokdad told CNN Wednesday that it will not attend because the international community has not lived up to previous agreements.
"The international community said they were committed to delivering aid to our people, releasing the women and children prisoners in (President Bashar) al-Assad's jails and lifting the siege on our cities and villages," he said.
"Until now they have not achieved any of these. So how can they guarantee that Assad has no future in Syria?"
Geneva II is a successor to Geneva I, a June 2012 meeting in which international parties laid out a peace plan for Syria that calls for a transitional governing body. It left open the question of whether al-Assad must leave power.
The United States and Russia announced in May that they would try to bring the warring parties to a second conference in Geneva to implement the plan. But the second Geneva conference was delayed several times.
State-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported this month that government officials would attend the conference without preconditions and with the goal of stopping violence in the country.
The Syrian conflict began in March 2011 after government forces cracked down on peaceful protesters during the Arab Spring movement. It is now a full-blown civil war. The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 people have died in the conflict, and 9 million have been displaced.
The Free Syrian Army surfaced in July 2011, when seven Syrian military officers -- believed to be the group's original members -- appeared on a YouTube video announcing their defection. They promised to wage guerrilla war against al-Assad.
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