Muallem Says Assad's Future 'Red Line' as Regime, Opposition Delegations Arrive in Geneva

The future role of Syrian President Bashar Assad is a "red line" for the government delegation in peace talks, the foreign minister said Tuesday on the eve of their opening.

"The issues of the president and the regime are red lines for us and for the Syrian people," the official SANA news agency quoted Walid Muallem as saying shortly before his delegation arrived in the Swiss city of Montreux for the talks.

"Nobody can touch the presidency."

He promised that the government delegation would make every effort to ensure the peace conference bore fruit.

"We are committed to working for the success of this conference so that it is the first step on the road to a dialogue between Syrians on Syrian soil," he said.

But he hit out at the U.N. organizers of the peace conference for their failure to invite a separate delegation from the government-tolerated opposition in Damascus which opposes the armed rebellion supported by the exiled National Coalition.

"The U.N. gave in to Western pressure by refusing to invite the national opposition," he charged.

The regime-tolerated National Coordination Body for Democratic Change said on Monday that it had turned down an invitation from the National Coalition to attend the peace talks as part of a single delegation.

It said its leader Hassan Abdel Azim had been invited to take part on Sunday by Coalition president Ahmad Jarba but had refused.

Syrian government and opposition negotiators arrived in the Swiss town of Montreux Tuesday, on the eve of long-awaited peace talks with the opposition, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

Muallem and fellow members of his delegation declined to answer journalists' questions as their cars arrived at the Grand Hotel Suisse Majestic near the shore of Lake Geneva.

Meanwhile, a member of the opposition told AFP that "the delegation has arrived and are already in the hotel."