Syria opposition has elected Khaled Khoja as the new head of the group during a meeting in the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Khoja was elected on Sunday when Hadi al-Bahra, the current head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), refused to run for reelection.
A total of 56 SNC members voted in favor of Khoja, the group’s representative in Turkey.
Nasr al-Hariri, Khoja’s rival and the group’s secretary-general, received 50 votes.
This came after the group held a three-day meeting in Istanbul to address a number of issues, including the Moscow-brokered peace proposal to end the deadly crisis in the Arab state.
The Syrian group is due to meet again in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to endorse a “road map” for negotiating with the Syrian government ahead of a round of meetings scheduled for later this month in Moscow, the Al-Hayat newspaper said.
It is not clear whether the Syria opposition will take part in the Kremlin-brokered peace talks as it insists that any solution to the Syria crisis must entail the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the formation of a transitional government. The Syrian government rejects these conditions.
This is while Assad has voiced support for Russia’s efforts to broker peace in his country.
The last round of talks between a Syrian government delegation and the opposition was mediated by the United Nations and held in the Swiss city of Geneva in February last year. The talks came to an end without any tangible results.
Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis since March 2011. The violence fueled by militant groups has so far claimed the lives of over 200,000 people, according to reports. New figures show that over 76,000 people, including thousands of children, lost their lives in Syria last year.
Over 7.2 million Syrians have also become internally displaced due to the ongoing crisis, according to the United Nations.
