Vienna: A committee representing the largest faction of Syria's armed opposition has announced here in Austria that it would not participate in next week's Syrian peace conference in Sochi, Russia. "The decision has been made to not go to Sochi," a spokesperson for the opposition High Negotiations Committee told Efe on Friday following the conclusion of the ninth round on UN-sponsored talks on Syria.

The UN-sponsored talks concluded without significant progress. The opposition leaders and officials of the government in Damascus, who spent two days in Vienna, did not meet face-to-face, instead exchanged proposals via UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. Representatives of President Bashar al Assad's government accused the US and Saudi Arabia of seeking to sabotage any efforts toward a political solution in Syria, where some 500,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011.