Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu discussed preparations for the Syria peace congress that is planned to be held in the Russian city of Sochi on Jan. 29-30 with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a phone call on Saturday, as a Syrian opposition delegation decided to boycott the meeting as they do not want a "sidelining of the importance of the Geneva meetings."

The head of the Negotiation High Committee of the Syrian opposition Nasır Hariri announced the decision to boycott the meeting on Saturday, saying that there was high pressure from their supporters to not attend the meeting.

Speaking after a two-day special meeting on Syria in Vienna, Hariri expressed that as the opposition delegation, they had positive discussions with the U.N., Russia and Turkey in Vienna while adding that they are planning to continue the political transition meetings in Geneva.

"This whole round in Vienna was supposed to be a crucial one, a test for commitment. And we didn't see this commitment. And the U.N. didn't see this commitment," Yahya al-Aridi, a spokesman for the opposition delegation at the Vienna talks also said.

"It's quite clear that somebody there is obstructing the whole process and wants to sideline the importance of Geneva, the political process as a whole," al-Aridi said.

The Sochi congress, brokered by Turkey, Russia and Iran, is supposed to bring the warring sides together to find an ultimate solution to the crisis. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in this respect, said in late November, 2017, that a new Syria would be born at the summit. Turkey, Russia and Iran are also the guarantor countries that brokered a cease-fire in Syria in December 2016, at the Astana talks, which ran parallel to the U.N.-backed discussions in Geneva to find a political solution to the six-year war.