Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee condemns Homs terror attack
GENEVA. Feb 26 (Interfax) - The Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) has condemned Saturday's bombings in Homs committed by terrorists, HNC spokesman Nasr al-Hariri said.
"We condemn all kinds of terrorism in all the countries. If the Homs terror attack was committed by terrorists, then the answer is obvious. We condemn all terrorist attacks," Hariri told reporters in Geneva on Saturday.
"Terrorism is practiced by Iran and their armed groups, as well as some other countries," he said.
Meanwhile, Fateh Hassoun, representative of the military wing of the HNC delegation alleged that Damascus could use the terror attack that killed dozens Syrian security troops in Homs on Saturday to influence the course of the Geneva talks.
"I know very well how the Damascus regime can use events for its own purposes," Hassoun said in Geneva, adding that in this particular case, "it might be an attempt t influence the course of the Geneva talks".
Regarding the terror attacks, Hassoun emphasized that in his view, "the [Damascus] regime, which wants to show to its people that it is fighting against terrorism, can be involved in it".
He went on to suppose that without any help from the government forces, the terrorists would have been unable to get to the areas where the terror attacks were committed.
Syrian opposition members always condemn such terrorist groups as the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra (both organizations are outlawed in Russia), Hassoun said. However, he went on to accuse Damascus of multiple bloody attacks on civilians.
In particular, Hassoun said he wonders why the Damascus delegation head at the talks Bashar al-Jaafari "is silent on the chemical weapons Damascus used against own people".
Syrian opposition members have long been accusing Damascus of using chemical weapons. However, Syrian authorities deny such allegations.
The HNC hopes that the Syrian opposition will have formed a united delegation by the end of the next week, HNC spokesman Salem al-Muslat said.
When asked by Interfax whether there is a chance that opposition delegations, including the Moscow Platform and the Cairo Platform groups, will ever become united, al-Muslat said: "We are hoping for this".
"We are still in talks about uniting delegations. Yesterday, we met with the Cairo Platform," he said.
"We still have a lot of meetings ahead and we hope that there is going to be one side representing Syrians at the Geneva talks," he said.
Bashar al-Jaafari, head of the Syrian government delegation at the Geneva talks, said earlier that the reaction from the talks' participants to the Homs terror attack will be a kind of test speaking of their actual intentions. The Syrian government delegation is ready to sit at one negotiating table only with a united delegation of the Syrian opposition, al-Jaafari also said.