SYRIA’S chief negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari said yesterday that the peace talks walkout by the “Riyadh opposition” had removed a “major obstacle” to the Geneva negotiations’ success.

Mr Jaafari reiterated that Damascus is ready to form an “expanded national unity government” with some opposition groups, but not those linked to terrorism or following foreign agendas.

“Those who want to walk away upon instructions they receive from the outside will have to take responsibility for their actions,” he said, in clear reference to Saudi Arabia.

The Western-backed, Saudi-based High Negotiation Committee (HNC) quit the talks this week over breaches of the seven-week-old ceasefire — committed by its two largest member groups.

Ahrar ash-Sham renewed its “Army of Conquest” alliance with the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front — excluded from the ceasefire due to its terrorist character — earlier this month to attack government positions in Aleppo province.

At the same time, the Army of Islam admitted shelling the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsoud suburb of Aleppo city with chemical weapons.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said both groups should be put on the terrorist list of December’s UN security council resolution 2254, along with Islamic State (Isis) and Nusra — a move the West opposes.

Those attacks came as a stab in the back during the army’s offensive against Isis, forcing it to abandon a push east from recently liberated ancient Palmyra to the besieged city of Deir Ezzor.

An Isis counteroffensive launched on Tuesday captured the Al-Sina’a industrial district of the city yesterday.

But the army’s Tiger Forces brigade fought back north of Palmyra, capturing the al-Mazar mountains and the Brigade 550 army base.

The unit’s commander Suheil al-Hassan recently returned from Aleppo to Palmyra, possibly signalling a shift in focus back to the M7 motorway to Deir Ezzor — and the Isis stronghold of Raqqa.

He had been overseeing efforts to retake the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp north of Aleppo with the help of a Palestinian volunteer militia.

Meanwhile, Palestine Liberation Organisation envoy to Syria Anwar Abed al-Hadi told Ma’an news on Tuesday that his compatriots had been subjected to rape and beheadings during ongoing fighting between Isis and Nusra for control of the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus.
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