Syrian peace talks which fail to address the question of President Bashar al-Assad's fate are "doomed to failure", a spokesman for the main opposition grouping involved in negotiations said.
AFP reports that Riad Naasan Agha, of the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, said that the talks which are set to resume on April 11 in Geneva must focus on the future of the Syrian leader.
"If negotiations did not address the fate of Assad, it would be a waste of time and doomed to failure," he said late Tuesday at a forum hosted by Al-Jazeera in Qatar.
The UN has said the upcoming round of talks will focus on plans for a political transition to lead Syria out of five years of brutal civil war.
Agha said that he was not hopeful the talks would produce a positive outcome as negotiations on forming a transitional government were almost at a "dead-end."
Negotiators from the regime are expected to attend the talks but only after the completion of parliamentary elections in the country on April 13.