AP

DOHA: Sharp disagreements arose Sunday on the first day of Syrian opposition talks meant to forge a more cohesive leadership that the international community says is necessary before it boosts its support for those trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad.
 
The main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, balked at a U.S.-backed plan that would largely sideline it to make room in a new leadership council for fighters and activists inside Syria.
 
At the Doha conference, the SNC will decide whether to accept a plan proposed by a prominent dissident, Riad Seif, to set up a new leadership group of about 50 members. The SNC would receive some 15 seats, meaning its influence would be diluted, while military commanders and local leaders in rebel-held areas would win wider representation.
 
Seif said his plan enjoyed broad international backing and called it a stepping stone to more robust foreign aid.
 
SNC chief Abdel-Basset Sayda dismissed Seif’s optimism, saying he and others in the SNC no longer trust promises of international support linked to restructuring the opposition.
 
“We faced this situation before, when we formed the SNC [last year],” he told the Associated Press. “There were promises like that, but the international community in fact did not give us the support needed for the SNC to do its job.”
 
The SNC is to decide Wednesday whether to accept Seif’s plan.
 
Sayda said the SNC believes it deserves at least 40 percent of the seats should it decide to join the new group, suggesting the organization may have decided it’s under too much pressure to reject the plan entirely.
 
In Cairo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, and the head of the Arab League, but no progress was made.
 
“We discussed the situation in Syria ... reviewing what has been done so far and if there is any way to move forward. And let us be clear, there wasn’t any agreement on anything,” Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby told a joint news conference.
 
“There are various ideas, but nothing definite,” he added.
 
Lavrov stressed the need to “convince the Syrian parties to cease fire and sit down for negotiations in accordance with the Geneva agreement,” referring to a Russian-backed transition plan world powers agreed on June 30. The Arab League scheduled a special session of its Syria committee for Nov. 12.
 
In Syria, activists said rebels captured an oil field in the east Sunday after three days of fighting with government troops, and shot down a warplane in the area. In the capital, a car bomb exploded near the Dama Rose hotel, wounding several people.
 
In Qatar, more than 400 delegates are attending four days of internal SNC meetings and will choose new leaders Tuesday. A day later, the SNC is to vote on Seif’s plan.
 
Seif will attempt Thursday to form the new leadership group with the backing of the SNC. If he is successful, the Friends of Syria, an alliance of countries backing the rebels, is to convene in Morocco, he said.
 
The 66-year-old Seif, who left Syria a few months ago after having been detained by the regime, said if his plan is accepted, “the whole world will be behind” the new opposition leadership.
 
Seif suffers from cancer and is not seeking a leadership role. In his opening speech, Sayda said the SNC was trying to unify all military groups and pledged that human rights violations by rebels would be punished, after a video emerged last week showing rebel fighters executing a group of unarmed, captured government soldiers, prompting an international outcry.
 
Separately, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on his first visit to the kingdom for talks which will focus on Iran and the unrest in Syria. Hollande told reporters aboard the aircraft taking him from Beirut to Jeddah that he would discuss “Lebanon, Syria, the peace process and Iran.”