Syria Regime Says Open to Talks on 'Broader Unity Government'

Syria's regime is prepared to discuss the creation of a new unity government at peace talks in Geneva but President Bashar Assad's fate remains off limits, its lead negotiator told AFP Tuesday.

Assad's chief representative in Geneva, U.N. ambassador Bashar al-Jafaari, had during previous rounds of peace talks insisted that any discussion of a political transition in Syria was premature.

"A broader unity government is the only topic of discussion here," Jafaari said in the interview with AFP.

"It is not in our jurisdiction, it is not within our prerogatives to discuss the fate of President Bashar Assad."

Jafaari made the comments a day after the main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) suspended its formal participation at the U.N.-brokered talks in protest at escalating violence and continuing restrictions on humanitarian access in Syria.

But the HNC pledged to remain in Geneva and may continue to meet informally with mediators outside the U.N. compound.

Despite the setback, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters on Monday that the government's readiness to even discuss political transition in Syria amounted to progress.

"Indeed, there is one major improvement in what we used to have: everybody agrees the word 'political transition' is the point of the agenda," he said.

He said huge divides exist in terms of how each side defines political transition, but there is "no doubt about the need" to tackle the subject.

However, prospects for a breakthrough on the crucial issue of Assad's future remain dim.

The HNC has insisted that the president must go and cannot be part of any transitional or interim government.

The opposition rejected an idea, floated during talks with de Mistura, that Assad remain the ceremonial head of a transitional body that would include three vice presidents of the HNC's choosing.

And Jafaari told AFP that Damascus was also unequivocally against such a proposal.

That idea "will never be discussed in any upcoming session because it is not within the authority of the negotiators in Geneva," he said.

De Mistura insisted the negotiations would continue, even as rising violence around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo further threatened a fragile ceasefire on the ground.

The truce brokered by the United States and Russia and declared on February 27 led to a sharp decline in bloodshed in the five-year conflict that has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.

De Mistura is set to meet the ceasefire monitoring taskforce later Tuesday after talks with two smaller opposition groups that are independent of the HNC.