Russia has asked the United Nations to blacklist a major terrorist group that is playing a key role in peace talks in Geneva, its ambassador to the UN said.

Russia has asked the United Nations to blacklist a major terrorist group that is playing a key role in peace talks in Geneva, its ambassador to the UN said.

Mohammed Alloush, a leading figure in Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), is the chief negotiator for the so-called High Negotiations Committee, the war-torn country's main Saudi-backed opposition group, at UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva.

Russia has also asked that another Takfiri  group, Ahrar al-Sham, be blacklisted.
"The Russian delegation submitted to the UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee a request" to add "two organizations: Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham," to a blacklist that includes ISIL and Al-Qaeda, Russia's ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said in a statement Tuesday.

Churkin said that the two groups are "closely linked to terrorist organizations, primarily the ISIL group and Al-Qaeda."

The groups "both give (the ISIL and Al-Qaeda) and receive from them financial, material, technical and military support," he said.

An unprecedented ceasefire deal brokered by Moscow and Washington saw Syria's government and non-Takfiri opposition groups agree to halt attacks while pursuing peace talks.

However the HNC pulled out last week from the latest round of talks that began on April 13.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov angrily accused the HNC's members of throwing "tantrums".

The Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam is the most important in the Damascus province.

Ahrar al-Sham is financed by Turkey and Gulf states, it is allied to Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, and fights alongside it around Aleppo and in neighboring Idlib province.