Dialogue between Syria gov’t and moderate “opposition” is possible – Sergei Ivanov

Russian presidential chief-of-staff Sergei Ivanov has reaffirmed the possibility of a dialogue between members of the Syrian government and representatives of Syria’s moderate “opposition’ as part of a planned international conference on Syria in Geneva.

“The war between the government and the “opposition” stopped [in Syria] a long time ago”, and today the Syrian opposition “is made up of at least five independent factions that frequently hate each other,” Ivanov told the Russia media,according to Voice of Russia.

“The West is beginning to understand that maybe the “opposition’ should be divided, that it is necessary to stop trying to persuade al-Qaeda and other extremists to speak about Geneva-2, and that weapons deliveries to them should preferably be stopped,” he said.

If the West “supplies weapons to the so-called “Syrian Popular Army”, which consists of Syrians who are fighting against the Syrian government, there will still be no reason to doubt that al-Qaeda is not seizing their weapons” because al-Qaeda is stronger than Syria’s internal opposition, Ivanov said.

“But even if we put all of these circumstances aside, first we could split the opposition into two parts and invite both the Syrian government’s representatives and what we can describe as a reasonable opposition to the Geneva-2 [conference], where dialogue may be launched,” Ivanov said.

M.D