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Syria opposition cancels Tuesday meeting with United Nations envoy
One of these, the HNC’s chief negotiator, is Mohammed Alloush from the powerful Islamist armed rebel group Army of Islam, or Jaish al-Islam, who arrived in Geneva late Monday.
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Syrian peace talks in Geneva were delayed after the main opposition group refused to negotiate until government forces ceased their air strikes and blockades. He said his first goal is simply to keep the talks going, and his overall aim is to help show concrete progress for embattled Syrians.
And HNC spokesperson Salem al-Meslet sounded upbeat after the meeting with de Mistura, vowing that his group “will strive to join the political process”.
The afternoon gathering was to be the opposition delegation’s second meeting with the Swedish-Italian diplomat at the United Nations headquarters.
The head of the government delegation, Bashar al-Jaafari, has said the opposition is “not serious” about peace and that there should be no preconditions for talks.
The Geneva peace talks mark the first attempt in two years to hold negotiations over Syria, whose war has drawn in regional and worldwide powers and forced millions from their homes and into neighboring states and Europe.
On Tuesday, Krzysiek said 14 trucks of aid were delivered the besieged rebel suburb of al-Tal.
Mediators are aiming for a nationwide truce, except for offensives targeting Islamic State and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, and the creation by midyear of a transitional government that includes the opposition.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, with the capture of the hilly countryside near Aleppo the Syrian army has been able to put a key supply route used by terrorists into firing range.
Bashar Ja’afari, Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the UN, speaks to journalists following a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, 16 September 2014, United Nations.
“We are still in the preparatory stage for indirect peace talks”, Ja’afari said, adding that his delegation was still waiting for a list of participants from de Mistura.
The opposition has claimed that Syrian forces, backed by Russian air strikes, have intensified their campaign against rebel positions in the west of the country.
The Syrian opposition had demanded that aid be allowed into 18 besieged areas throughout the country and that Syrian and Russian forces halt the bombardment of rebel-held areas ahead of the talks, which officially began Monday.
“We haven’t seen a catastrophe like this since World War II, and it’s unfolding before our eyes”, he said at a conference in Rome on countering the advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if members of any such groups “take part in negotiations… If the other side really cares about the blood of Syrians as it says, then we expect them to issue a statement condemning this terrorist attack”, he said.
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“They [the outside powers] themselves will start helping, ensuring that there will be a discussion about a ceasefire… that will be the strongest message to Syrians”, de Mistura said.