Syria opposition picks team for talks

Beirut — Syria's opposition on Sunday announced its 21-member delegation, including 10 rebel representatives, for a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva scheduled for Feb. 20. The delegation will be headed by Nasr Al-Hariri, a member of the National Coalition, replacing Assad Al-Zoabi, who led the opposition at several previous rounds of talks in Geneva last year. The delegation›s chief negotiator was named as Mohamed Sabra, a lawyer who was part of the opposition›s technical team during negotiations in Geneva in 2014. He replaces Mohamad Alloush, who served as negotiator during three rounds of peace talks in Geneva as well as negotiations in the Kazakh capital Astana in January organized by Turkey and Russia. The delegation includes representatives from several rebel groups, including Faylaq Al-Sham and Liwa Sultan Murad, a battalion close to Turkey. The umbrella High Negotiations Committee (HNC) opposition group said the delegation to the talks would for the first time include representatives from two additional opposition groupings, known informally as the Moscow group and the Cairo group. But representatives from both groups denied they were included in the delegation. In the past, the HNC has opposed including the two rival opposition groupings in its delegation. Invitations to the talks in Geneva have yet to go out, having been delayed in part to allow the opposition to decide on the composition of their delegation. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura warned last week that he would pick the opposition delegates to the talks if they could not decide on time. But he later appeared to backtrack and said he would delay dispatching invites. — AFP