Election officials in Syria are counting ballots after parliamentary polls closed last night.

Voters in government-held areas were electing 250 MPs to parliament on Wednesday. The opposition and Western powers criticized denounced the ballot as illegitimate, as they are looking to a political transition in the new round of peace talks.

But Syria's President Bahar al Assad defended that the election was required by the constitution, and he said that terrorism groups can not shake the country's' social infrastructure through years of civil war.