Syria’s opposition will meet on Tuesday, January 26 to discuss UN-led efforts to convene delayed peace talks, an opposition spokesman said, repeating a call for goodwill steps from the government including a halt to bombardments before any talks happen, Reuters reports.
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The latest advance comes just ahead of scheduled talks which increasingly look set to stall, partly because of a dispute over the opposition negotiating team’s composition and opposition demands that Russian Federation stop bombing civilian areas and Damascus lift sieges before they will come to the table. “And, therefore, thanks to the broad ceasefire, an increase in humanitarian aid”, de Mistura said. The UN official said that he will start issuing invitations for the talks tomorrow but refused to comment on the specifics of the invitations – the issue has been a major point of contention, particularly, between the U.S. and Russian Federation. “It will be uphill anyway”.
The ISSG includes countries like the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and China.
The United Nations is trying to convene the first talks in two years to end Syria’s almost 5-year-old civil war, but the effort so far has been held up in part by disagreement over who should be invited to attend to represent the opposition. But the USA and others have supported them in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
But European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who spoke to reporters alongside Cavusoglu, said that, “from the European perspective, we attach an extremely high value on the fact that the process in Geneva will be inclusive”.
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The U.N. special envoy on Syria says he hopes to start peace talks between the government and opposition groups on Friday. That resolution also aims to produce credible governance and a schedule for drafting a new Syrian constitution. The recapture of the town of Rabiya in Latakia province paved the way for an advance up to the border with Turkey, which supports insurgents fighting against President Bashar al-Assad, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
