President Bashar Assad has reportedly told the Arab League-UN envoy that foreign support for the armed opposition must end if any political solution to the country’s conflict is to succeed.

According to the Associated Press, state-run Al-Ikhbariya television quoted Assad as telling Lakhar Brahimi during their meeting Wednesday, Oct 30, in Damascus that the “Syrian people alone are entitled to draw the future of Syria, and any solution must be approved by them.”

Brahimi is in Damascus to try to save faltering diplomatic efforts to convene an international peace conference to find a political resolution to Syria’s civil war.

The prospects for the conference appear dim — the Syrian opposition remains deeply divided over whether to attend, while the government refuses to sit down with the armed opposition.