SYRIANS went to the polls yesterday to elect a new parliament in defiance of foreign-funded revolutionaries and terrorist armies.

Around 7,300 polling stations across the country opened at 7am as voters elected 250 MPs from over 3,500 candidates despite the ongoing civil war.

President Bashar al-Assad and his London-born investment banker wife Asma al-Assad cast their votes together at the Assad Library in Damascus in the morning.

No voting took place in Raqqa province, occupied by Islamic State (Isis), or Idlib, dominated by the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, but polling stations were open in Syria’s other 12 provinces.

Refugees from rebel-held areas were allowed to vote in the provinces hosting them, ensuring their representation in the new parliament.

“The Syrian people decide their destiny,” said Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.

But US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said the US “would view those elections as not legitimate” and a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Berlin could not accept the results of election held under conditons of civil war.

A Downing Street statement repeated demands for an 18-month transitional government before new elections.

But a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that the poll was a “major factor for stabilisation in the country” and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it was necessary to avoid a “vacuum of power.”

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said on Tuesday that holding the election in line with the normal four-year schedule was a constitutional requirement.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the foreign-backed opposition to abandon its “dream” of a transitional government, saying it would “never be acceptable.”

He said division among the opposition made it “impossible to negotiate a viable agreement.”

UN-brokered indirect “proximity talks” between the government and the Saudi-convened High Negotiations Committee (HNC) — an umbrella group for foreign-funded extremists — are set to resume in Geneva in the coming days.

But fighting continued between HNC factions and the government in Aleppo province.

The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) accused several groups of repeatedly shelling the Sheikh Maqsoud suburb of Aleppo held by its YPG militia.