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Syria peace hope in jeopardy

Opposition, Saudi Arabia up ante as Assad remains defiant

Agencies
Plans for talks in Geneva to end the fighting in Syria were in jeopardy yesterday after the opposition refused to attend unless President Bashar al-Assad is forced from power and a furious Saudi Arabia made clear it would no longer co-operate with the United States over the civil war.
Western and Arab powers yesterday agreed with Syrian opposition leaders that President Bashar al-Assad should play no future role in government, but they struggled to convince the rebels to attend key peace talks in Geneva next month.
The rebels, who met with the so-called Friends of Syria group of 11 countries in London, said they would not take part in the Geneva conference in late November if any regime members were there, and insisted that Assad's departure was essential.
The head of the national coalition, Ahmad Jarba, also rejected hints by Hague and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that Iran could play a role if it backs the plan for a transitional government.
But a defiant Assad still showed no sign of backing down after a two-and-
a-half-year civil war that has left more than 115,000 people dead, saying that he was ready to run for re-election as president in 2014.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the London meeting had urged the Syrian National Coalition -the main opposition umbrella group -to "commit itself fully" to the so-called Geneva 2 talks.
Hague said the Friends of Syria agreed that they would put their" united and collective weight" behind efforts to form a transitional government and that "Assad would play no role in that future government of Syria".
US Secretary of State John Kerry took a similar position, saying that
Assad had "lost ail legitimacy".
The Syrian opposition is due to meet at the start of November to finalise their position on the Geneva talks, which are a follow-up to a peace conference held in the Swiss city in June 2012.
But any deal between the powers SNC may not solve the problems on the ground.
Many of the mostly Islamist rebels fighting in Syria refuse to recognise the exiled opposition favoured by the West.
Efforts to present a united front suffered a further setback when it emerged that Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief had said the kingdom would make a "major shift" in relations with the United States in protest at its perceived inaction over Syria and its overtures to Iran.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan has told European diplomats that Washington had failed to act on Syria among other Middle Eastern issues, according to a source close to Saudi policy.
There would be no further coordination with the United States over the war in Syria, where the Saudis have armed and financed rebel groups fighting Assad, the source said.