Syria Talks in Sochi: What we know about major opposition SNC

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Now, here's what we know about the opposition bloc, the Syrian Negotiations Commission, which is skipping this week's talks.

Until recently, the SNC was known as the Higher Negotiation Committee, or HNC. The committee was formed in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh in December, 2015, in an effort to unite all Syrian opposition groups ahead of UN-brokered peace talks Geneva in 2016.

Syria's former Prime Minister Riyad Farid Hijab was chosen as the committee's first General Coordinator. The Riyadh-based HNC consists of 33 members: nine from the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, five from the more moderate National Coordination Body, 10 from militant rebel factions, and nine independent opposition figures.

The HNC attended several rounds of UN-backed peace talks in Geneva and in Vienna, and also the ones in Astana, which were jointly brokered by Russia and Turkey.

The bloc wants President Bashar al-Assad out of office to end the civil war. It's a position the Syrian government deems unacceptable. Naser al-Hariri was selected as the new head of the SNC in November, 2017.