The United Nations announced Monday that long-awaited peace talks between the Syrian government and its opponents would be held in Genevaon Jan. 22. But the conference’s attendees have not yet been defined, nor has the role of President Bashar al-Assad.

Disagreements over both issues have frustrated efforts to plan the conference in the past, and statements by opposition leaders on Tuesday hinted that no progress had been made.
Gen. Salim Idris, the nominal head of the rebel Free Syrian Army, said that conditions were not right to hold the conference since it had not been made clear that it would result in Mr. Assad’s ouster.
“We will not stop fighting at all, either during the Geneva conference or after the Geneva conference,” General Idris said in an interview with Al Jazeera television. Instead, he called for more arms and ammunition, saying the rebels’ military might would “strengthen the negotiators who represent the opposition in Geneva.”
The opposition’s nominal political leadership, the Syrian National Coalition, has repeatedly said it will not attend peace talks that do not guarantee Mr. Assad’s ouster, and has at times called for other measures like prisoner releases and access for humanitarian aid as prerequisites.
“We did not make a final decision yet on our participation in the Geneva conference, " the coalition’s head, Ahmad al- Jarba, told reporters in Cairo, according to The Associated Press. The group plans to decide during a meeting next month.
The Syrian government too has yet to commit to the talks. Syrian state media reported the United Nations announcement without saying if Syria would participate. In the past, Syrian officials have said that they would not negotiate with those who have taken up arms against the state, or permit outside forces to determine Mr. Assad’s fate.
Reflecting the continued violence on the ground, a car bomb in a government-controlled area west of Damascus on Tuesday killed at least 15 people and wounded many others, Syrian state news media and an opposition monitoring group said. The monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said six of the dead were government soldiers.
By BEN HUBBARD