Syrian opposition threatens to walk out of Geneva peace talks

Syria’s opposition negotiators have threatened to pull out of the UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva unless Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government agreed to release thousands of detainees and lift sieges on rebel-held areas.

Representatives of the Saudi Arabia-based group, known as the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) – a member of Syria’s main opposition bloc - landed in Geneva late on Saturday, a day after a delegation representing the Assad regime arrived and held preliminary talks with the Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s Syria envoy trying to restart long-stalled negotiations between bitter enemies nearly five years into the conflict.

“We want the peace talks to work, but there is no seriousness on the part of the regime,” HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet told Al Jazeera. Meslet said that the HNC would discuss with de Mistura on Sunday its conditions for joining the negotiations, which include the government agreeing to lift sieges on opposition-held areas and stop shelling them and agreeing to release prisoners.

HNC coordinator Riad Hijab, who did not travel to Geneva, said in an Arabic statement posted online that “if the regime insists on continuing to commit these crimes, then the HNC delegation's presence in Geneva will not be justified.”

The proposed intra-Syrian talks are part of a peace plan set out in November by external powers embroiled in the five-year-old conflict, some on different sides. The Geneva talks got under way on Friday with a meeting between De Mistura and a Syrian government delegation.

Meanwhile, Syria’s opposition negotiators have demanded the release of thousand of detainees, including hundreds of women and children being held by Bashar al-Assad’s government, as a confidence-building measure before joining UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva.

Syrian and western sources said on Saturday that an initial list of 177 prisoners had already been given to Staffan de Mistura. In total, the opposition is seeking the release of 3,000 people, including 700 held in Deraa, the largest city in southern Syria.

Diplomats say freeing prisoners is more easily achievable than ceasefires and allowing aid convoys into 15 locations defined as under siege across the country. Releases will also allow the opposition to demonstrate to sceptical supporters that it has concrete gains to show for taking part in the talks – and help prepare the ground for taking tougher decisions.

The opposition announced later that it would also attend after a day of confusion and pressure – and receiving assurances from the US and UN that its demands for an end to airstrikes and improved humanitarian access would be taken seriously.

The anti-Assad rebels are pressing for immediate implementation of two clauses of UN resolution 2254, which underpins the latest phase of international diplomacy on Syria. These address humanitarian issues and call for an end to attacks on civilians.

The peace talks process envisions elections within 18 months but leaves unresolved the future of Assad, whose government has been making gains on the ground since Russia began supporting it with air strikes since last September.

Another thorny issue is which rebel groups will be involved in the talks, though all sides agree on the exclusion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front, which is seen as allied with al-Qaeda.

An estimated 250,000-300,000 people have been killed and 10 million displaced since the Syrian crisis erupted in March 2011. Two previous Geneva conferences failed to halt the war.