Rival gatherings in Saudi Arabia and northern Syria have opened a new fissure in the chronically fractured Syrian opposition at a time when competing factions and their external sponsors are under pressure to unify and form a negotiating team ahead of ceasefire and political talks with the government, set for January 1st.
As 100 delegates from the expatriate National Coalition and mainly fundamentalist armed factions met on Tuesday in Riyadh, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) convened at the town of al-Malikiyeh in the northeastern Syrian province of Hassakeh.
Here control is divided between co-operating Kurdish and government forces.
Not invited to attend the Saudi conference was the SDF, dominated by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People's Protection Units, although its battle hardened units are the most effective fighting Islamic State.
Saudi Arabia did not include the Syrian Democratic Forces due to its ties to the PYD, seen by Riyadh ally Turkey as an offshoot of the Turkish Worker's Party that has fought Ankara for autonomy or independence for more than three decades.
The PYD has characterised the Riyadh meeting as “unfair . . . because it does not represent the full makeup of the Syrian people”.
Defiant attitude
The PYD has also taken a defiant attitude toward Riyadh: “We are not concerned with the output of the Riyadh conference and we will act like it never happened. No one, whoever they may be, can impose on us any decision in which we did not take part.”
Syrian Democratic Forces brings together the military wings of the PYD, two Christian factions (the Assyrian Democratic and Syriac Union parties) and Armenian and Sunni Arab tribal fighters from around Syria.
The National Co-ordination Committee for Democratic Change, a domestic opposition group, is represented at both conferences. Haytham Manna, co-founder of the Cairo Conference coalition, pulled out of the Riyadh talks to attend those in Hassakeh.
Mr Manna complained that Saudi Arabia had included Ahrar al-Sham, a fundamentalist faction allied with al-Qaeda, and had sidelined "moderate" (secular) groups.
Just solution
Conference organiser
Sinhanuk Dibo
said the Hassakeh talks would focus on the Kurdish demand that Syria’s future political system be “decentralised” and provide for a “constitutional and just solution for the national rights of the Kurdish people”.
This demand is at odds with the views of both politicians and paramilitary commanders attending the Riyadh gathering. They favour a unified Syria under strong central government.
Among key differences between the two gatherings: Riyadh participants have external patrons with diverse agendas while the Hassakeh factions are largely independent;and the Riyadh attendees focus on ousting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad while the Syrian Democratic Forces fight Islamic State.
