Syria TV Shows Opposition's Jarba Alongside 'Terrorist Crimes'

Syrian state television on Wednesday broadcast a speech by opposition chief Ahmad Jarba at peace talks in Switzerland alongside footage of "terrorist crimes" in Syria.

The state broadcaster failed to identify Jarba as he began his speech at the conference in the Swiss town of Montreux.

In a split screen, it showed Jarba on the right, under the heading "Montreux, Switzerland," and on the left footage of death and destruction under the heading "Terrorist Crimes in Syria."

It left up quotes from Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who spoke before Jarba, in a breaking news alert on the bottom of the screen as Jarba spoke.

State television used the same format when Turkey and Saudi Arabia's foreign ministers Ahmet Davutoglu and Saud al-Faisal spoke.

Both Turkey and Saudi are key backers of the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.

While the two chief diplomats were shown on the right of the screen, the images on the left were of summary executions, bombings, pools of blood, destroyed buildings and dead bodies, including the body of a child.

The two sides in Syria's nearly three-year-old conflict are meeting in Switzerland for the so-called Geneva 2 talks, a U.S.-Russian initiative to try to end the violence.

More than 130,000 people have been killed since March 2011, when Syrians rose up in an initially peaceful protest movement against Assad that was met with a brutal crackdown, eventually igniting a full-scale civil war.

The Assad regime has long referred to all those seeking his ouster as "terrorists."