Syria's most important peace talks in 2 years have reached an 'impasse' - and they haven't even started yet
The council will apparently continue to deliberate in the coming days and weeks over whether it will attend at all.
"UN says Syria talks will start as planned in Geneva tomorrow. The opposition team will not travel to Geneva tomorrow," Syria expert Charles Lister, a resident fellow at the Middle East Institute, said on Twitter.
That, he added, equals a major "impasse" before the talks have even begun.
The delegation's decision to skip the talks comes after its final calls for Syria's government to end its aerial bombardments on civilians and lift its sieges on rebel-held areas went unheeded by the UN's Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura.
De Mistura had insisted at a press conference on Monday that "our line … is clear: no preconditions, at least to start the talks."
The HNC sent a letter to de Mistura and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon reiterating its demands on Wednesday. It convened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to await clarification from de Mistura over whether its preconditions would be met before Friday.
"There is a problem we would like to clarify with de Mistura," Riyadh Naasan Agha, a member of the HNC, told ABC. "Is the main aim of these negotiations for them to be held or to succeed?"
"There must be a halt to the bombardment of civilians by Russian planes, and sieges of blockaded areas must be lifted" in order for conditions to be "appropriate" for meaningful negotiations, George Sabra, deputy head of the opposition delegation, told Reuters on Thursday.