Syrian rebels willing on conditional peace talks
Say President Bashar al-Assad should transfer power and be excluded from any transition process.
BEIRUT (AFP) - Syria s main opposition grouping said Monday it was willing to attend peace talks on the condition that President Bashar al-Assad transfer power and is excluded from any transition process.
The National Coalition "is willing to participate in the (peace) conference on the basis of the full transfer of power... and that Bashar al-Assad and those with the blood of Syrians on their hands have no role in the transitional phase and Syria s future," the group said in a statement.
The decision, in a statement issued by the Coalition s General Assembly after two days of meetings in Istanbul, lists other conditions for the opposition s participation in mooted peace talks in Geneva.
It calls for humanitarian corridors to be opened to allow relief to trapped Syrians and the evacuation of civilians and for the release of prisoners.
AP adds: Syrian activists say a mortar round has hit a Damascus suburb, killing a man and his four children.
The British-Based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that the round landed on the man s car in the residential area of Jaramana. The Observatory said many more were wounded, including the children s mother.
It was part of a series of salvos that slammed into the neighborhood on Sunday evening.
It wasn t clear who fired the shells. There are frequent clashes in a nearby town between Syrian forces loyal to the government of President Bashar Assad and rebels trying to overthrow him.
The Observatory receives its information from a network of activists on the ground.
The Syrian news agency SANA reported the same incident but said three children were killed.
