Morning Star.png Keep Syria together for security Resist moves to break up Syria, says Peskov James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 12 March 2016 Russia reiterated yesterday that maintaining Syria's territorial integrity is vital to the entire Middle East as Western-backed militants said they would attend Monday's peace talks in Geneva. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that resisting moves to Balkanise Syria along sectarian lines was "a cornerstone." "Both the format of Syria's political system and the format of Syria's authorities are the issues that are to be decided by the Syrians," he said. "Only the Syrians themselves can take a legitimate decision about their future." Meanwhile, the Saudi-convened High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said it had reversed its rejectionist position on the UN-sponsored talks following the truce brokered by Russia and the United States. But the HNC, which includes major fundamentalist forces Ahrar ash-Sham and the Army of Islam, continued to insist on the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the full spectrum of Syrian opposition groups should be represented at the talks, where Turkey has objected to the presence of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. Speaking at a press conference with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Mr Lavrov said Beijing and Moscow shared similar views on Syria. . Sources in Deir Ezzor said on Thursday that Islamic State (Isis) terrorists besieging the city had murdered a prominent poet and his son. Mohammad Bashir al-Aani and his son Eyass were abducted from their home by Isis two months ago. Mr Aani was a member of the Arab Writers Union and had published three books of poetry. From: <http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-e110-Moscow-keeping-Syria-in-one-piece -vital-for-security#.VuOhafl9600> http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-e110-Moscow-keeping-Syria-in-one-piece- vital-for-security#.VuOhafl9600 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
