“The EU supports the ISSG co-chairs and the UN Special Representative in their efforts to create the conditions for restarting intra-Syrian talks in Geneva as soon as possible”.
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Mistura and his office have recently sought to deliver aid and medical evacuation to those in the worn-torn city as government forces and local rebels continue to battle in the streets of Aleppo.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura called for the timetabled “humanitarian pauses” for aid convoys to reach some two million civilians left shattered by attacks on rebel-held parts of the northern city from president Bashar al-Assad’s forces and their Russian allies.
Earlier, the Russian defense ministry said on Twitter Russia was willing to support a plan by United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura for weekly 48-hour “humanitarian pauses” in Aleppo, from next week.
“That would require some heavy lifting from not only the two co-chairs [Russia and the United States] but also those who have an influence on those who are fighting on the ground”, Russian Federation and the United States back opposite sides in the civil war.
De Mistura stopped a meeting on humanitarian access after just eight minutes, saying it made “no sense” to plan aid deliveries when they would not be let into besieged areas.
Rycroft also expressed concern that Russian Federation and Iran, members of an worldwide group trying to end the Syrian war, “are deliberately prolonging this conflict rather than doing everything they can to end it and get the political transition that is so desperately needed”.
The taskforces for humanitarian aid and a cessation of hostilities, created by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) which comprises the United Nations, the Arab League, the European Union and 16 other countries, have been meeting separately since late previous year on a way forward on the Syrian crisis.
Escalating violence there, where Russian Federation and Iran are supporting bombing campaigns against the rebels, some of whom are backed by Arab and Western powers, has caused the breakdown of Geneva peace talks overseen by de Mistura.
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The Syrian opposition has said it wants to see a credible pause in violence, as well as improved humanitarian aid access, before peace talks can resume. “There are martyrs and wounded”, he told Reuters.
