Syria opposition cancels second meeting with UN envoy

Syria's main opposition group said Feb. 2 that it will not attend a planned afternoon meeting with the U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura, adding further doubts about the prospects for peace talks in Switzerland.

"There is no meeting with de Mistura," said Farah Atassi, member of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC).  

"We presented the demands that we wanted to demand. At this moment, there is no reason to repeat ourselves with de Mistura," she told reporters outside of the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. 

United Nations spokeswoman Khawla Mattar also confirmed that there would be "no other meetings today" with de Mistura, who met with the Syrian government delegation in the morning of Feb. 2.

The afternoon gathering was to be the opposition delegation's second meeting with the Swedish-Italian diplomat at the U.N. headquarters.   

The announcement followed comments from the government's chief negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari that formal indirect peace talks had not yet begun.

De Mistura had said Feb. 1 that his first official meeting with the HNC meant that the negotiations were indeed under way.

"The circumstances on the formalities are not yet ready. We are in the preparatory stage before the official launch of indirect negotiations," Jaafari told reporters after a meeting with de Mistura. 

"To prepare the official launch we have to have the presence of the two delegations, but on the other side the delegation has not been finalized," he added. 

Representatives of the HNC - which includes political and militant opponents of President Bashar al-Assad - have warned that they will not negotiate unless the government stops bombarding civilian areas, lifts blockades and releases...