De Mistura said the political talks on Syria’s future are stalled, the cease-fire is unravelling, and much of the limited humanitarian aid deliveries have been blocked.
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The apparent impasse of the Geneva talks has shifted diplomats’ attention to a proposed ministerial meeting of the 17-member group of global and regional powers most engaged in the Syrian crisis.
“This includes a boycott of Syrian banks and preventing investment in Syria”.
President Barack Obama said Thursday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, must intervene to stop the truce from disintegrating completely.
Israel is widely thought to have carried out a number of airstrikes that have targeted advanced weapons systems believed to be destined for the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militant group.
Further southwest in Hama province, warplanes targeted rebel-held areas in the strategic Ghab plain that borders Latakia province, Mr Assad’s coastal heartland.
Ibrahim said the fighting started after government forces attacked a Kurdish security patrol, killing two of its members on Tuesday.
A US official separately said Russian Federation has been repositioning artillery to northern Syria – a move that may suggest the Syrian government and its allies are preparing another assault on the divided city of Aleppo. The Czech Republic is the only European Union country that keeps an ambassador to Damascus.
The envoy said he planned to continue peace talks next week, probably until Wednesday, despite the “worrisome trends on the ground”, adding that he would seek clarity from government negotiators about their interpretation of political transition.
With the Czechs, Mekdad discussed the distribution of the latest humanitarian aid from the Czech Republic. “Now that the cessation of hostilities is effectively dead, it looks like it’s time to consider what Secretary Kerry referred to as “Plan B”, and I look forward to him laying that out very soon”.
Earlier, the United Nations evacuated 500 people “in urgent need of life-saving medical attention” and their families from four other towns.
HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet suggested de Mistura might be better off preparing for the next round of talks and ensuring the government was serious.
The U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who is mediating the talks in Geneva, said Friday that they were in “great trouble”.
On Friday de Mistura also told the press conference that peace talks between different Syrian groups will continue into next week.
U.N.-brokered talks in Geneva to resolve the Syria conflict have been bogged down after the Western-backed opposition delegation suspended its participation and the warring sides traded accusations.
The arrival of Russian reinforcements would risk driving the war into an even higher gear after the effective collapse of the truce and U.N.-led peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending a five-year war that has killed at least 250,000 people.
The Syrian government negotiator Bashar Ja’afari poured contempt on the opposition for its partial walkout, accusing it of sulking and political immaturity.
Many living in and around Rastan had fled fighting in neighbouring Hama province.
The convoy was made up of 65 trucks containing food, medicine and medical equipment, electricity generators and water treatment materials.
The two-month-old cease-fire, now in jeopardy, was intended in part to improve access to besieged areas of Syria.
“So far, 560,000 people have been reached between hard-to-reach areas and besieged areas”.
In Geneva, the talks faltered this week as opposition delegates walked out to protest what they said were Syrian regime violations of the cease-fire.
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President Obama said if the Syrian cease-fire fails, “none of the options are good”.
