Syria’s chief opposition negotiator resigns

By Zeynep Tufekci and Mohamad Misto

DAMASCUS

The head of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Mohamed Alloush, announced his resignation on Monday due to what he described as a "lack of seriousness" on the part of the international community regarding the ongoing crisis in Syria.

"The international community has the power to stop the bloodshed in Syria," Alloush, who is also the head of the Jaish al-Islam, an armed opposition group, tweeted.

"But they lack any interest in easing the plight of the Syrian people," he said.

Alloush attributed the failure of previous peace talks in Geneva to what he described as the Assad regime’s intransigence and its continued bombardment of civilian areas in Syria.

The international community, he asserted, appeared unable to enforce recent UN Security Resolutions on Syria, especially those pertaining to the war-battered country’s deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Alloush went on to blame the UN for what he described as the world body’s failure to set the agenda of peace talks, calling on the Free Syrian Army and other anti-regime groups to unite against the common enemy.

"This," he said, "is the only way to victory."

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with disproportionate ferocity.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to the UN, which stopped compiling the death toll two years ago.

Although a shaky ceasefire technically remains in place in Syria, three separate rounds of peace talks in Geneva have failed to resolve the conflict.