GENEVA
At least 30 Syrian opposition armed groups have rejected a UN invitation for talks in Geneva to discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria, a UN spokeswoman said Thursday.
"From our side, we can confirm that De Mistura took note of the letter [written by the opposition groups]," the spokeswoman of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, Jessy Chahine, told Anadolu Agency Thursday.
"The consultations continue as usual, and we remain in contact with all relevant parties, including the armed factions, who play an important role in the current Syrian conflict," she said.
More than 40 Syrian groups, including Syrian opposition armed groups, had been invited to the talks in Geneva.
The Bashar al-Assad Syrian administration, representatives of countries in Syria's neighborhood, and members of the UN Security Council had all been invited for discussions in Geneva, which started Tuesday and was expected to last up to six weeks.
On Monday, Syrian National Coalition President Khaled Khoja told Anadolu Agency that the coalition would participate in peace talks in Geneva, contradicting other coalition members who said they won’t participate.
Earlier, the coalition's Secretary-General Yahya Maktabi had told Anadolu Agency that the coalition would not participate in the ongoing talks in Geneva and another planned conference in Cairo next week.
Maktabi said that the decision was made because the majority of UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura's team allegedly "favored the Syrian regime" and that the coalition was "being treated like any other opposition group."
The Istanbul-based Syrian National Coalition was one of the main parties representing the Syrian opposition in the first and second Geneva conferences in 2012 and 2014, respectively. However, the group appeared to gradually lose touch with developments on the ground, particularly after the outbreak of Daesh that ravaged Iraq and Syria.
In January 2014, the coalition’s threat to abandon the upcoming UN-hosted talks in Geneva after a last-minute invitation to Iran had resonated enough with UN officials to prompt a withdrawal of the invite.
According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, also known as the Syrian National Coalition, is a coalition of opposition groups formed in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict between Bashar al-Assad's regime and opposition forces began in 2011, according to the UN.
