Free Syrian Army fighters sit on a sidewalk in in Aleppo yesterday.

Reuters/Beirut

A decision by Western and Arab countries to arm rebels fighting to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad poses a danger to peace talks, the Syrian foreign minister said yesterday.

Walid Muallem told a news conference in Damascus that the opposition had little hope of matching the Syrian army’s strength despite a pledge by the states that make up the “Friends of Syria” to increase military support to the rebels.

“If they expect or fantasise that they can create a balance of power, I think they will need to wait years for that to happen,” he said during the televised news conference.

Western and Arab countries as well as Turkey, who have thrown their weight behind the opposition, said their decision to arm the rebels was to rebalance the conflict in which more than 93,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians.

Assad is seen as having gained momentum, seizing a strategic town near the Lebanese border which helps him cement control between the capital Damascus and his stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.

Muallem said that a move towards openly giving military support to the rebels would encourage terrorism and that radical Islamist groups linked to Al Qaeda would benefit the most.

The US and Russia are planning a peace conference in Geneva between the opposition and Assad’s government.

“Arming the opposition will obstruct Geneva. Arming the opposition will kill more of our people,” Muallem said. “We head to Geneva not to hand over power to another side.

“Whoever on the other side imagines this, I advise them not to go to Geneva.”

The government was willing to discuss forming a broad-based government of national unity in Geneva, he added.

Muallem said Syria wanted a ceasefire in order to hold talks at Geneva.

“We are insistent that if Geneva is held there must be a ceasefire, and we are ready to study mechanisms for observing it on the basis that neighbouring states abide, by halting training, arming and financing and sending them to Syrian territory,” he said.

In Brussels, a European Union report said the bloc should support a political settlement but also ease sanctions to help people in rebel-held areas, following steps to exempt the rebels from oil and banking sanctions.