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 Kofi Annan, the joint UN-Arab League envoy to Syria has said he was “optimistic” that the talks on Syria would produce an acceptable outcome.
“I think we are going to have a good meeting tomorrow [Saturday]. I am optimistic,” Annan told Reuters Television in Geneva on Friday.
The talks being held by foreign ministers of major powers and regional players in the Swiss city will end “with an acceptable result”, he said, without giving details.
Russia proposed changes on Thursday to his plan for a national unity government in Syria, despite initially supporting it, but the United States, Britain and France rejected the amendments, Western diplomats said.
The suggested changes are related to Moscow's refusal to support the ouster of Syrian President al-Assad, diplomats in New York said on condition of anonymity.
Foreign ministers from Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq will also attend the meeting
Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told Reuters: “The talks are on course and the preparatory meeting is going ahead this morning [Friday].”
Assad on Thursday dismissed the notion of any outside solution to the 16-month-old uprising against his rule.
“We will not accept any non-Syrian, non-national model, whether it comes from big countries or friendly countries. No one knows how to solve Syria's problems as well as we do,” Assad said on Iranian state television.
The Syrian president went on to describe the Syrian armed opposition as “gangs of mercenaries and criminals,” insisting that they are driven by paramilitary forces. He then reiterated that “for terrorists and the governments that sponsor them, reforms are not important, since the very forces that claimed (a lack of) reforms were the problem; never benefited from them... all they wanted was (continued) unrest.”
Also on Thursday, two bombs exploded outside the Palace of Justice in central Damascus, state television reported, without giving any immediate word on any casualties.
(Source: Agencies)
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