BEIRUT/GENEVA: A large Syrian rebel group has said the best way to push Damascus to a political settlement of the country’s civil war was to give insurgents anti-aircraft missiles and has pledged to control the arms if provided. The Army of Islam, echoing opposition concerns over a U.N.-led drive to launch peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 25, also said it was unacceptable to talk about a political solution to the war while people died of hunger and bombardment.

The opposition to President Bashar Assad wants goodwill measures including a cease-fire, a detainee release and the end of blockades on besieged areas before starting negotiations.

International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Pawel Krzysiek said Saturday aid convoys could reach the rebel-held border town of Madaya Monday. The town has been under siege since July and the government said it would allow aid to flow inside.

Krzysiek added that aid won’t be able to reach Madaya and the two besieged northern Shiite village of Al-Foua and Kufreya before Monday “for logistical reasons.”

“Right now, preparations are underway. We are loading the trucks and sending the movement notifications,” Krzysiek said.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is shuttling around the region to prepare for the talks, part of a plan endorsed by the Security Council last month to end the five-year-war that has killed 250,000 people and created millions of refugees.

The Army of Islam, part of a newly formed council to oversee the negotiations on the opposition side, said the “best way to force the regime to accept the [political] solution and stick by it” was to allow states that back the opposition to supply rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.

The statement, sent by the group’s spokesman overnight, said it would guarantee the missiles would not reach groups that would use them “illegally.”

Foreign governments including the United States and Saudi Arabia have provided rebels with military support, but have resisted demands for missiles for fear they would end up with hard-line groups such as Daesh (ISIS).

The Syrian government told de Mistura Saturday it was ready to take part in Geneva talks but stressed the need to see the names of the Syrian opposition figures who will take part.

Pointing to another potential complication, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem also stressed the need for the government to obtain a list of groups that would be classified as terrorists as part of the peace process.

The Army of Islam said the success of the political process “depended on the seriousness of the international community in putting pressure on the criminal regime to halt the killing.”

Opposition officials have already cast doubt on whether the talks will go ahead on schedule, citing the need to see the goodwill measures from the government side.

In other developments, the recently formed secular Kurdish-Arab alliance demanded that the United Nations give it a seat at the table in upcoming talks in Geneva.

“For us, it is very important that all components of the Syrian opposition have equal rights to participate in the future negotiations,” said Haytham Mannaa, the co-head of the Syrian Democratic Council.

“We are ready to participate in any negotiation under the umbrella of [U.N. Special Envoy for Syria] Staffan de Mistura,” he told AFP, as the organization wrapped up a two-day meeting in Geneva.

Separately, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll from Russian aerial strikes on a rebel-held town in northern western Syria Saturday climbed to 81 people with at least 52 civilians among the dead.

The dead included 23 fighters from the Nusra Front and six Islamist fighters, in the latest update by the Observatory on casualties.

The raids hit courthouse and prison run by Al-Qaeda’s offshoot Nusra Front and residential areas in the town of Maarat al-Numan, a major urban center in Idlib province whose towns have been the targets of intense Russian bombing in the last two months.

Rescue workers and rights groups say Russia’s bombing in Syria has killed scores of civilians at busy market places and in residential areas. Russia denies this.

Jets also believed to be Russian pounded Talbiseh and Rastan towns in Homs province and the southern town of Sheikh Miskeen, part of Moscow’s major military intervention to help the Syrian army gain ground lost to rebels, the Observatory and activists said.