DHAKA: France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said he was ‘pessimistic’ about the situation in Syria and had great doubts about the success of a proposed peace conference to be held in Switzerland next month.

‘In Syria, I am sadly quite pessimistic,’ Laurent Fabius told delegates at the World Policy Conference in Monaco.

‘We are working on the success of (the Geneva talks) but we can have a great deal of doubt on that.’

He said for the first time that Syria’s moderate opposition, which Paris has supported, was in ‘great difficulty’, referring to the Free Syrian Army and Syrian National Coalition.

BDST: 1441 HRS, DEC 15, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor