Russia’s Syrian peace talks begin despite opposition delegates’ boycott

Syrian peace negotiations got under way in Russia today without delegates from any of the major opposition groups, after Turkish-backed Syrian rebel representatives refused to leave the airport in Sochi.

“They apparently didn’t want to get out of the airport buildings because they had seen Syrian government flags plastered all over the branding for this Sochi conference, and that upset them,” Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reports from the Russian city.

Mohammed Adnan, a member of the Syrian opposition based in Turkey, told Reuters that about 70 people were in the group at the airport waiting to fly back to Ankara. The main Syrian opposition group - the Syrian Negotiation Commission - said last week that it would boycott the Sochi talks. Officials from Syria’s Kurdish autonomous region said they would not attend either, because of the Turkish offensive on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

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There were further embarrassing scenes at the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue conference when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was heckled by some of those delegates who did attend. The protesters accused Moscow of killing Syrian civilians in air strikes, Reuters reports.

Officially, the conference aims to broker an agreement between the Syrian government and opposition to write a new constitution. But according to France 24, the talks are part of Russia’s “broader push to consolidate its influence in the Middle East and start hammering out a political solution to the conflict” that has bitterly divided Syria for seven years.

Russia’s Tass news agency, citing the forum’s organising committee, said delegates representing the Syrian “domestic” opposition included Qadri Jamil from “the Moscow platform”, Randa Kassis from “the Astana platform”, and Syria’s Tomorrow Movement led by Ahmad Jarba.