“We hope and are helping so that these negotiations, which have lasted too long, may reach an outcome”.
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Later this month, Prime Minister John Key will head to NY where he’ll attend the opening of the 71st General Assembly and deliver New Zealand’s statement in the General Debate.
But as government forces try to counter a major rebel assault in the province of Hama, the UN’s Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura raised one more fragile prospect for peace on Thursday.
The two negotiations reflect a desperate diplomatic effort to bring some calm amid an escalation of the five-year conflict, in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria, as Russian, Turkish, Iranian, Saudi and USA -backed forces turn up the heat.
There was still hope of agreeing a 48-hour truce in the northern city of Aleppo to allow aid deliveries, his humanitarian advisor Jan Egeland said.
“There are some indications that you must have been seeing… to indicate a quite clear political initiative during the week preceding the General Assembly”, de Mistura told reporters in Geneva.
A United Nations envoy for Syria says U.S. and Russian Federation are carrying out top-level ceasefire discussions.
Egeland said only pressure from countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey could unlock the door to aid deliveries.
It is against this backdrop that De Mistura hopes to bring the Syrian situation to the attention of the 71st UN General Assembly which will take place in NY.
The pair discussed cooperation in Syria in a telephone call on Thursday, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
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Kerry said the talks with Lavrov had “achieved clarity on the path forward” but together they offered few details on how they planned to renew a February cessation of hostilities and improve humanitarian assistance.
