European leaders told Russian President Vladimir Putin they welcomed the fact the fragile truce appeared to be holding, and it should be used to try to secure peace without Assad.
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Peace talks in early February were cut short amid intensifying Russian air strikes in Syria in support of Assad’s forces.
But attacks continued, including on territory held by the Islamic State group and Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, both of which are not included in the ceasefire.
“We will hold preparatory meetings and then go into detail with each group separately”, he said.
According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders since March 2011.
The United Nations envoy to Syria is trying to parlay a week-old ceasefire into peace talks that would begin on Wednesday in a staggered start.
Government operations were “focused on Homs, on the coast mostly”, while Aleppo – the target of a major government offensive a month ago – was relatively calm, he said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday said that at least 45 rebel and Islamic fighters, and 32 civilians, including seven children, were among the dead.
He said either Syrian or Russian planes carried out the strikes.
Commenting on de Mistura’s proposal to restart intra-Syrian contacts on March 9, Hijab said the ceasefire in Syria failed to drastically improve the humanitarian situation.
“We wish for rapid resumption of negotiations in Geneva”. For those reasons, he said the opposition remains undecided about attending peace talks. He said humanitarian aid has reached 120,000 people but there are another 350,000 in besieged areas in need of assistance.
Western countries want Assad to leave power. Russian Federation has stood by him, while saying only Syrians should decide his fate.
“This is unfortunately at the expense of the Syrian revolution”, he said.
“We all know this is one of the trickiest points”, she said, adding that Cameron “underlined the importance of a transition away from Assad to a government that… can be fully representative of communities across Syria”.
“In my opinion we will start on the 10th of the month”.
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The leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the United Kingdom discussed the temporary Syrian truce on Friday (the sixth day in which it has largely held) and agreed that it has shown the potential to pave the way for more comprehensive peace talks aimed at ending the six-year-old conflict in that country.
