Opposition chief under fire for talks with Assad allies

Syria's opposition leader flew back to his Cairo headquarters from Germany yesterday to explain to sceptical allies his decision to talk with President Bashar al-Assad's main backers Russia and Iran, in hope of a breakthrough in the crisis.
The Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, and US Vice-President Joe Biden, portrayed Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib's new willingness to talk with the Assad regime as a major step towards resolving the two-year-old war, reports Reuters.
"If we want to stop the bloodshed we cannot continue putting the blame on one side or the other," Iran's Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday, welcoming Alkhatib's overtures and adding that he was ready to keep talking to the opposition. Iran is Assad's main military backer together with Russia.
Russia has blocked three UN Security Council resolutions aimed at pushing Assad out or pressuring him to end a civil war in which more than 60,000 people have died. But Moscow has also tried to distance itself from Assad by saying it is not trying to prop him up and will not offer him asylum.
Salehi welcomed Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib's readiness to hold talks under conditions with the Syrian regime, reports AFP.
"It's a good step forward," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference, where he said he had held a "very good meeting" with Khatib.
Meanwhile, at least 13 civilians were killed yesterday in a missile attack by the Syrian army on a rebel-held neighbourhood in the embattled northern city of Aleppo, a monitoring group said.
"We have documented the names of nine people, while we can confirm at least another four were also killed. All were civilians," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said, reports AFP.
The watchdog warned that the number of casualties could rise as people scrambled to sift through the rubble of a five-storey building that collapsed in the attack on Ansari district, in southwestern Aleppo.