A statement from the State Department said that Patterson, “underscored the need to work toward a political transition as outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and urged Russian Federation to use its influence with the Assad regime to push for full humanitarian access to all Syrians in need”.
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“We do not know who is the other side”.
The main opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), is due to meet de Mistura on Tuesday afternoon and has continued pressing for immediate progress on getting humanitarian aid into besieged towns. Neither ISIS nor Nusra are at the talks, and they will continue to fight regardless of what comes out of Geneva.
But it left unresolved the future of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The envoy said he understood opposition concerns on the humanitarian situation and that if the government released women and children prisoners it would be a “signal that something is happening”.
On Sunday the extremist Sunni group said it was a behind multiple bombings at a revered Shia shrine south of Damascus that monitors said killed more than 70 people.
Rebels said the offensive was being conducted with massive Russian air support, despite a promise of goodwill steps by the Syrian government to spur peace negotiations. “We are in the preparation stage preceding the official beginning of these indirect discussions”, he said following meeting with the UN envoy held in Geneva’s Palace of Nations, the headquarters of the UN European office, that lasted more than two and a half hours.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who set a six-month timeframe for the much-anticipated talks that began on January 29, did not invite the Kurdish minority for the intra-Syrian negotiations.
He said more than 15 government fighters and 20 rebels had been killed in the fighting since Monday.
United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, met with the government delegation, led by the country’s ambassador to the world body Bashar Jaafari, on Tuesday.
A sustained assault against opposition-held territory in Latakia province has brought the Syrian government and its Russian ally into open conflict with the Turkish government, which sees itself as the protector of Syria’s ethnic Turkmen.
Western states opposed to Assad, including the United States and Britain, piled pressure on the opposition to attend the Geneva talks which have been beset by problems including a row over who should be invited to negotiate with Damascus.
His comments came as indirect UN-brokered talks between Syria’s warring parties, which had been scheduled to start last week, continued to struggle to get off the ground.
The day belonged to the opposition, as de Mistura’s team put off a planned morning meeting Monday to meet with the opposition – which he had not hosted yet.
“The Russians say let’s talk, and then they talk and they talk and they talk”.
“Regarding Syria talks, this period is decisive”, Lavrov said at a press conference in Abu Dhabi with Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
The chief negotiator of the High Negotiations Committee, the main opposition bloc, says he is not optimistic about the talks, because the situation has not changed on the ground.
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Lavrov was in the UAE meeting his Emirati counterpart. “At this moment, there is no reason to repeat ourselves with de Mistura”, she added.
