MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. Representatives of the Syrian opposition were derailing and delaying the negotiations on a political settlement in Syria in the hope of assistance from a new US president in the person of Hillary Clinton, Vitaly Naumkin, Science Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a senior political advisor to UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told the Rossiya 24 TV channel on Tuesday.

"The Syrian opposition derailed the talks, rejecting them under various pretexts. In reality, it meant to last until the US elections, and then Clinton will come and start either supplying anti-aircraft weapons to gunmen or deploy US troops there," he noted.

According to the expert, Clinton indeed "hinted that, perhaps, there will be supplies of other weapons to the opposition, if something goes wrong at the front of the cessation of hostilities, even though the Americans themselves did not comply with this agreement and wrecked it."