Via INN:

Powerful armed groups in Syria said on Sunday that attending peace talks or negotiating with the regime would be an act of betrayal, AFP reported.

The joint declaration by the 19 Islamist groups fighting to topple President Bashar Al-Assad castfurther doubt on whether the long-delayed peace talks dubbed “Geneva 2” will actually go ahead.

It comes as the UN-Arab League peace envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, prepares to travel to Damascus on Monday, according to pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan.

“We announce that the Geneva 2 conference is not, nor will it ever be our people’s choice or our revolution’s demand,” the groups said in a statement read out by Suqur al-Sham brigade chief Ahmad Eissa al-Sheikh in a video posted online.

“We consider it just another part of the conspiracy to throw our revolution off track and to abort it,” said the statement, according to AFP.

The 19 rebel groups warned that anyone who went to such talks would be committing “treason, and … would have to answer for it before our courts.”