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Reuters
PARIS
Syria's chief opposition coordinator Riad Hijab said on Monday that defeat in Aleppo would not weaken the resolve of opponents of President Bashar al-Assad to remove him from power.
"If Assad and his allies think that a military advance in certain quarters of Aleppo will signify that we will make concessions, then (I say) that will not happen. We will not make any concessions," Hijab told reporters after meeting French President Francois Hollande.
Hijab, once a prime minister under Assad, accused Russia of double standards by saying that the opposition was always demanding preconditions for peace talks when in reality Assad's opponents wanted international resolutions that Moscow had agreed to at the United Nations to be implemented.
"The Russians voted this resolution. Why doesn't it implement it? Why doesn't it stop bombing? Why doesn't it lift the blockades it has put in place with the Assad regime, Shi'ite militias and the Iranian revolutionary guard?"
"The Syrians are dying of hunger. We want a real political transition ... that would enable Syria to go from a dictatorship to a democratic state," he said.
Hijab, who presides over the High Negotiations Committee of opponents of Assad, also accused Assad's forces and Russia of being unwilling and unable to fight Islamic State militants who control parts of the country and on Sunday retook the ancient city of Palmyra.
