Syria’s warring sides discussed the issue of terrorism at a sixth day of UN-brokered peace talks on Thursday, sources said, but the gulf over who is to blame remained deep.
Halting violence and terrorism in Syria was among the terms of the never-implemented “Geneva I” declaration made by an international conference here in 2012, and which forms the basis for the current talks.
The Syrian regime is spotlighting hardline Islamists groups among the rebels and therefore slapping the “terrorist” label on the broader opposition. Government negotiators repeatedly have insisted that the subject of terrorism must be foregrounded at the talks.
As meetings got under way in Switzerland last week, Syrian officials brandished what they said was a list of rebel terrorist acts and lambasted countries such as the Arab monarchies and Turkey which are top backers of the Opposition.
“We have to combat more than 83 countries that are interfering daily in the internal affairs of the Syrian Arab Republic, sending arms, sending weapons, sending terrorists and sending all that is destroying Syria,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad said in Geneva earlier this week.