China said Thursday it held talks with a key Syrian opposition group this week, amid fierce criticism of its decision to block a UN resolution condemning a bloody crackdown in the Middle East country. China and Russia drew international ire for blocking the UN Security Council resolution on Saturday, with Washington calling their rejection a “travesty” and another Syrian opposition group saying they had handed President Bashar al-Assad’s regime a “licence to kill”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said the visit by the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB) had “long been scheduled” and was not linked to China’s controversial veto.
NCB representatives told Chinese officials they would like Beijing “to play a bigger role for an early resolution to the Syrian crisis,” Liu said. But the NCB, one of the main opposition factions in Syria, staunchly opposes foreign military intervention in the conflict — which is in line with China’s long-standing policy of non-interference in other nations’ internal affairs. The other main opposition group, the Syrian National Council (SNC), is widely regarded as the most inclusive of Syria’s opposition alliances and has previously called for foreign military intervention.
