US Secretary of State John Kerry has hailed a decision by Syria’s main political opposition group to attend next week’s peace talks in Switzerland.
Responding to the Syrian National Coalition’s Saturday decision in Istanbul, Turkey, Mr Kerry said in a statement: “This is a courageous vote in the interests of all the Syrian people who have suffered so horribly under the brutality of the Assad regime and a civil war without end.”
Of the SNC delegates who voted at a conference in Istanbul, 58 were in favour, 14 were against, while one declined to vote.
It is less than half of the 120-member coalition, as the other members stayed away in disapproval of the project.
The aim of the talks, to be held in Montreux, is to start the process of setting up a transitional government to end the war in Syria.
The three-year conflict has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people.
An approximate two million people have took off from the country and some 6.5 million have been internally displaced.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said “this brave choice, despite the provocations and acts of violence by the regime, is a choice to search for a peaceful solution”.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also admired the SNC’s “difficult decision.”
“As I have said many times, any mutually agreed settlement means that Assad can play no role in Syria’s future,” he added.