De Mistura’s comments come as a new round of UN-brokered talks between the Syrian government and opposition is to start in Geneva on Monday.
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Assad’s status is a “red line”, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told reporters in Damascus, even as he confirmed that regime negotiators were prepared to attend Monday’s peace talks in Switzerland.
The main opposition bloc in Geneva, the Saudi-based High Negotiations Committee, has made it clear that it views Assad’s departure as obligatory for any move toward a United Nations blueprint for a “transitional” government in Syria.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the truce had reduced violence by 80-90 percent since coming into force on February 27, which he described as “very, very significant” news ahead of the talks.
“Despite this progress, we all of us here remain deeply concerned by the Assad regime’s practice of removing badly needed medical supplies from those supplies and in particular the surgical kits”, he said.
The Gulf Cooperation Council countries have expressed, in a joint statement, their support for a political solution in Syria and the importance of keeping Syria’s territories unified.
Like the first round at the end of January, these discussions are to be mediated by Swedish-Italian UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, who has said the talks will last until March 24th, break for consultations and resume 10 days later.
But experts warn that negotiations will still struggle to achieve a durable peace on the fractured battlefields, where multiple groups are competing for dominance. Bassel Salloukh, political science professor at the Lebanese American University of Beirut, said the current talks were more of a forum for global powers involved in the conflict.
The Syrian Civil War, which erupted after peaceful anti-government protests in 2011, has so far cost the lives of at least 250,000 people.
The militants from the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front along with allied jihadists have been moving to exert their authority over rebel-held areas in Idlib province since the partial cease-fire took effect.
Russian Federation has its own complaints, accusing U.S.-backed rebels of shooting down a Syrian warplane Saturday with an anti-aircraft missile.
Additionally, diplomats have discussed a possible initiative to restart the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, as France hopes to host an worldwide conference on the issue in the coming months. They said past year, aid agencies were unable to access any of these areas.
The talks began Monday with de Mistura hosting a government delegation led by Syria’s United Nations ambassador, Bashar Jaafari.
However he added: “We do not know what issues we will address or the agenda, which we still have not agreed on”.
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Even though the U.N. Security Council resolution calls for an inclusive transitional governing body in Syria with full executive powers, asking Assad to resign would be a nonstarter, his chief envoy said Saturday.
