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U.N. to clarify Syria talks outlook on June 29

GENEVA (Reuters) – The prospects for a new round of Syria peace talks should be clearer after the U.N. Security Council discusses options on June 29, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters on Thursday.

De Mistura said he had accompanied U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to St Petersburg, where they had “quite a comprehensive and long meeting” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that mostly focused on Syria.

The last round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition broke up at the end of April as government forces, backed by Russia, escalated their assault on rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo.

A “cessation of hostilities” that had brought peace to much of Syria for two months largely broke down, and the war has resumed in many areas.

De Mistura told reporters he was aiming for a July date for a new round of talks to meet an August deadline for a deal, but first he wanted the United States and Russia to make a “critical mass” of progress on a deal for political transition in Syria.

Despite the suspension of negotiations on a political transition – involving, crucially, the future of President Bashar al-Assad – officials have continued “technical” talks on some of the questions that need to be solved in any political deal.

De Mistura’s team has held technical talks in Moscow and Cairo and plans more in Riyadh and Damascus, and he said so far they had been very useful.

“They are under the radar, calm and quiet and discreet but they have been providing us with quite a lot of substantive points that can be, will be useful, when the (next round of) intra-Syrian talks take place,” he said.

De Mistura’s humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the U.N. was still asking the government for permission to get into two besieged zones, Arbin and Zamalka in Rural Damascus. He hoped to reach the towns next week.

Egeland also warned that four towns covered by a single local peace deal – Zabadani, Foua, Kefraya and Madaya – had not had food deliveries since April. The humanitarian situation was in danger of sliding back to conditions at the start of the year, when people in Madaya were starving to death.

The agreement to get supplies into another besieged zone, the al-Waer suburb of Homs, was also “going badly”, he said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Andrew Roche)

Israel’s Netanyahu aims to head off criticism with diplomatic blitz

Benjamin Netanyahu Israel Prime Minister in meeting

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Rome on Sunday to try to fend off pressure from the United States and Europe over his settlements policy and opposition to a French-led effort to forge peace with the Palestinians.

Beginning three days of intense diplomacy, the right-wing premier will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in the Italian capital, followed by talks with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem.

One of Netanyahu’s immediate concerns is a forthcoming report from the Middle East Quartet, a mediation group made up of the United States, EU, United Nations and Russia, that is expected to use unusually tough language in criticising Israel’s expansion of settlements on occupied land that the Palestinians seek for an independent state.

Diplomats confirmed that the current language in the report is strong, on the one hand condemning Israel’s unchecked building of settlement homes, which is considered illegal under international law, and on the other persistent Palestinian incitement against Israel during a recent wave of violence.

What is unclear is whether the wording may be softened before the report is issued, probably next week, although its publication has already been delayed several times.

“As it stands, the language is strong and Israel isn’t going to like it,” said one diplomat briefed on the content. “But it’s also not saying that much that hasn’t been said before – that settlements are a serious obstacle to peace.”

Netanyahu spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week as part of his efforts to keep the Kremlin closely updated on developments in the region. The leaders have met face-to-face four times in the past year, with one Israeli official saying the two had developed a good understanding.

As well as a desire to defang the Quartet report, there are a series of issues Netanyahu needs to broach with Kerry, including how to conclude drawn-out negotiations with Washington on a new, 10-year defence agreement.

There is also the looming issue of a peace conference organised by the French that is supposed to convene in the autumn, although it may no longer take place in Paris.

Israeli officials oppose the initiative, seeing it as side-stepping the need for Israel and the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate directly. They argue that it provides the Palestinians a chance to internationalise the conflict, rather than dealing with the nitty-gritty on the ground.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who addressed the European Parliament on Wednesday, said Israel was feeling impatience with Europe and now was not the right time to push for peace.

“Currently, the practical conditions, the political and regional circumstances, which would enable us to reach a permanent agreement between us — the Israelis and the Palestinians — are failing to materialise,” he said.

Many diplomats also question whether the French initiative can inject life into an all-but-defunct peace process, which last broke down in 2014, but they are willing to try.

A nagging concern for Israel is that the conference will end up fixing a time frame for an agreement on ending Israel’s 49-year-old occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and reaching a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

If that doesn’t emerge from the French plan, it remains possible that a resolution along similar lines could be presented to the United Nations Security Council before the end of the year. That is another reason why Netanyahu will be eager to sit down with Ban for talks on Tuesday.

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Russia calls for swift resumption of Syria peace talks

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Russia called on Tuesday for a swift resumption of stalled Syrian peace talks, saying it was the only way to halt “massive violations” of human rights perpetrated in the five-year-old conflict.

Russia, a strong ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launched air strikes in September to support the Syrian army and its militia allies battling rebels and Islamic State fighters, and is backing an offensive on rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo.

It supports proposals for a political settlement under which some Syrian opposition figures would be brought into a Syrian unity government – steps which rebels and their foreign backers say do not go far enough.

“The only way to find a solution to the Syria crisis and stop the massive violations is to promptly convene talks with a broad spectrum of Syrian opposition which includes Syria Kurds,” Aleksei Goltiaev, senior counselor at Russia’s mission to UN in Geneva, told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

“Only Syrians, without diktat, have the right to decide (their future),” Goltiaev said.

The main Syrian Kurdish political group, the PYD, was left out of Geneva peace talks which ground to a halt in late April without results.

Goltiaev’s comments followed an appeal by United Nations war crimes investigators for world powers to pressure the warring sides to return to the negotiating table.

Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the U.N. independent commission of inquiry on Syria, said that the Syrian government was conducting daily air strikes, while militant groups including Islamic State and the Nusra Front also carried out indiscriminate attacks.

“We need all states to insist time and time again that influential states and the (U.N.) Security Council unconditionally support the political process,” Pinheiro said.

U.S. ambassador Keith Harper did not refer to resumption of talks, but called for Damascus to release some of the “tens of thousands” of imprisoned Syrians. Many are subjected to “torture, sexual violence and denial of fair trials”, he said.

Pinheiro said schools, hospitals, mosques and water stations “are all being turned into rubble” and tens of thousands of people were trapped between frontlines and international borders.

Syria’s ambassador Hussam Aala accused regional powers of “supporting terrorism” and “causing the failure of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva”.

He said schools and hospitals in Aleppo were being destroyed and civilians killed by missiles provided by Turkey and Qatar to the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

In a report last week, the U.N. investigators said that Islamic State is committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy the religious community of 400,000 people through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

“As we speak, Yazidi women and girls are still sexually enslaved in Syria, subjected to brutal rapes and beatings,” Pinheiro said on Tuesday.

Vian Dakhil, the only female Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament, told a news briefing in Geneva: “We need the Security Council to bring this report to the Criminal Court.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Dominic Evans)

France launches ‘urgent’ conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace

French President Francois Hollande delivers a speech during an international and interministerial conference in a bid to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in Paris

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s president said on Friday that spiraling Middle East upheaval since the collapse of the round of Israel-Palestinian peace talks has complicated the process and makes it even more urgent bring the two sides back to the table.

With U.S. efforts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace in deep freeze for two years and Washington focused on its November presidential election, France lobbied for an international conference that began on Friday with the aim of breaking the apathy over the impasse and stir new diplomatic momentum.

While Palestinians have supported the French initiative, Israeli officials have said it is doomed to fail and that only direct negotiations can lead to a solution to the generations-old conflict.

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have been invited to the conference, though the objective is to get them to negotiate after the U.S. elections.

“The discussion on the conditions for peace between Israelis and Palestinians must take into account the entire region,” Francois Hollande told delegates at the opening of the conference in Paris.

“The threats and priorities have changed,” he said, alluding to escalating Middle East conflict that has engulfed Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast and the spread of Islamic State insurgents through wide swathes of the region.

“The changes make it even more urgent to find a solution to the conflict, and this regional upheaval creates new obligations for peace,” Hollande said.

“TWO-STATE SOLUTION” FADING -MOGHERINI

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, seconded Hollande’s call and said it was the duty of

international and regional players to find a breakthrough since the two sides appeared incapable of doing so alone.

“The policy of settlement expansion and demolitions, violence, and incitement tells us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away,” Mogherini told reporters.

The interim 1993 Oslo peace accords forged by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat were meant to yield a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territory within five years – the so-called “two state solution”.

She said the Middle East Quartet of the EU, Russia, the United States and United Nations was finalizing recommendations on what should be done to create incentives and guarantees for Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate in good faith.

“The policy of settlement expansion and demolitions, violence, and incitement tells us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away,” Mogherini added.

Previous attempts to coax the foes into a deal have been fruitless. The Palestinians say Israeli settlement expansion in occupied territory is dimming any prospect for the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with a capital in Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel has demanded tighter security measures from the Palestinians and a crackdown on militants who have attacked Israeli civilians or threaten their safety. It also says Jerusalem is Israel’s indivisible capital.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, whose exhaustive mediation of the last peace talks stumbled on the two sides’ intransigence, appeared lukewarm to the French initiative when asked if it could lead to fresh face-to-face talks.

“We’ll see, we’ll have that conversation, we have to know where it’s going, what’s happening. We’re just starting, let’s get into the conversations,” he told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.N. vows to airdrop Syria aid if needed, eyes renewed peace talks

United Nations special envoy on Syria de Mistura speaks during a news conference in Vienna

By Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations will take the “last resort” option of air drops of humanitarian aid if access to besieged areas in Syria is not improved by June 1, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.

Without improved aid access and some restoration of Syria’s tattered cessation of hostilities, the credibility of the next round of peace talks would be in question, he said.

The damage to the peace talks prompted the United States and Russia to convene the International Syria Support Group of major and regional powers on Tuesday, which toughened the truce terms and endorsed a stronger push for humanitarian aid.

“We want to bring aid to everyone. If the food cannot be brought by convoys, the alternative is air drops,” de Mistura told reporters.

Air drops were “the most expensive, the most complicated, the most dangerous option”, he added. “So the air drops are the last resort, but we are getting close to it.”

The U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) has made 35 air drops of food and other supplies to about 100,000 people in the eastern town of Deir al-Zor, besieged by Islamic State, due to a total lack of access, but that is the only location so far.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in a position paper given to donors on Wednesday and obtained by Reuters, voiced deep concerns about air drops and urged states to consider the risks and consequences.

“Air drops in certain contexts, particularly populated, urban environments such as many of those areas under siege in Syria, can pose a real, physical danger to persons to whom they are intended to provide relief,” the ICRC said.

“To avoid causing unnecessary injuries, and to ensure the orderly, non-violent distribution of the assistance, the drop zone must be adequately controlled.”

Air drops should not substitute the need for ground-based aid, it added.

CREDIBILITY OF TALKS

De Mistura said he would not abandon the peace talks, but was waiting for the right date.

“Obviously we are in a clear hurry to start reintroducing the next round of the intra-Syrian talks,” he said.

He did not rule out overriding any Syrian government objections to air drops, but said it would depend on U.N., U.S. and Russian assessments.

De Mistura’s humanitarian advisor Jan Egeland said a clear intention to organise air drops for Syria’s remaining besieged areas would help convince President Bashar al-Assad to allow humanitarian convoys to go in by road.

“We do believe that the option of air drops will actually make it possible for us to go by land in the next weeks,” he said.Egeland said aid had reached 13 of 18 besieged areas after a convoy got into the Harasta suburb of Damascus on Wednesday. But another convoy was turned back from Daraya town last week because what he called “well-fed” soldiers barred it from delivering baby milk powder.

Humanitarian supplies this month have not reached half the 900,000 people the U.N. wanted to supply in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, he said. The target for June is 1.1 million.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Islamist militants exploit chaos as combatants pursue peace in Yemen

By Mohammed Ghobari and Noah Browning

CAIRO/DUBAI (Reuters) – Islamic State efforts to exploit chaos may have brought Saudi-backed forces and Iran-allied Houthis tentatively closer at peace talks in Yemen’s civil war, but a deal seems unlikely in time to avert collapse into armed, feuding statelets.

Ferocious conflict along Yemen’s northern border between Saudi Arabia and Iran-allied Ansurallah, a Shi’ite Muslim revival movement also called the Houthis, defied two previous attempts to seal a peace. But a truce this year and prisoner exchanges mean hopes for a third round of talks are higher.

The threat from an emerging common enemy may be galvanizing their efforts. Islamic State appears to be behind a dizzying uptick in suicide attacks and al Qaeda fighters continue to hold sway over broad swathes of the country that abuts Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday the kingdom sought to prioritize fighting militants in Yemen over its desultory arm-wrestle with entrenched Houthi insurgents.

“Whether we agree or disagree with them, the Houthis are part of the social fabric of Yemen … The Houthis are our neighbors. Al Qaeda and Daesh are terrorist entities that must be confronted in Yemen and everywhere else,” Jubeir tweeted, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Now largely stalemated, the conflict has killed at least 6,200 people – half of them civilians – and sent nearly three million people fleeing for safety.

Despite the relative lull during talks, hostility continues. Saudi Arabia has pounded its enemies with dozens of air strikes. Houthis have responded with two ballistic missile launches.

If the parties seize the opportunity, an unlikely new status quo may reign by which Houthis and Saudis depend on each other for peace.

“This could mean a massive re-ordering of Yemen’s political structure, and the conflict so far has already produced some strange bedfellows,” said Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government in 2014 in what it hailed as a revolution but which Sunni Gulf Arab countries decried as a coup benefiting Shi’ite rival Iran.

Pounding the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army with air strikes beginning on March of 2015, a Saudi-led alliance soon deployed ground troops and rolled back their enemies toward Sanaa, held by the Houthis.

A near-blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition and frontlines which ebb and flow across villages and towns have deprived nearly 20 of 25 million people of access to clean water and put yet more in need of some form of humanitarian aid.

“SURRENDER”

Of the countries where pro-democracy “Arab Spring” uprisings in 2011 ultimately led to outright combat, Yemen’s United Nations-sponsored peace process arguably shows the most promise.

Unlike with Libya and Syria, representatives of Yemen’s warring sides meet daily in Kuwait and argue over how to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions and share power.

But while keeping Yemen’s parties talking for this long was an accomplishment, getting them to live together in Sanaa and share power remains a distant dream.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi accused the Houthis of resisting a U.N. Security Council Resolution from last April to disarm and vacate main cities.

“There is a wide gap in the debate, we are discussing the return of the state … they are thinking only of power and demanding a consensual government,” he told Reuters.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam said on his facebook page: “The solution in Yemen must be consensual political dialogue and not imposing diktats or presenting terms of surrender, this is unthinkable.”

But a diplomatic source in Kuwait said that through the fog of rhetoric, a general outline of a resolution has been reached.

“There is an agreement on the withdrawal from the cities and the (Houthi) handover of weapons, forming a government of all parties and preparing for new elections. The dispute now only centers around where to begin,” the source said.

FEUDING STATELETS

All parties will be aware the danger of a collapse into feuding statelets is growing. The Houthis are deepening control over what remains of the shattered state it seized with the capital in 2014.

Footage of the graduation ceremony of an elite police unit last week showed recruits with right arms upraised in an erect salute, barking allegiance not just to Yemen but to Imam Ali and the slain founder of the Houthi movement – a move critics say proves their partisan agenda for the country.

Meanwhile the Houthis’ enemies in the restive, once independent South agitate ever more confidently for self-rule.

Militiamen in Aden last week expelled on the back of trucks more than 800 northerners they said lacked proper IDs and posed a security risk.

The tranquility amid the gardens and burbling fountains of the Kuwaiti emir’s palace hosting the talks have not impressed residents of Yemen’s bombed-out cities, who despair whether armed groups can ever be reined in.

“All the military movements on the ground suggest the war will resume and that both parties are continuing to mobilize their fighters on the front lines,” said Fuad al-Ramada, a 50-year old bureaucrat in the capital Sanaa.

(Writing By Noah Browning; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Talks closer to a Syrian truce to Aleppo

US Secretary of State Kerry gestures next to UN Special Envoy on Syria de Mistura during a news conference in Geneva

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Lesley Wroughton

AMMAN/GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday talks were closer to extending a Syrian truce to Aleppo, the divided northern city where a sharp escalation of violence in recent weeks has torpedoed peace talks.

Kerry was in Geneva for talks with other dignitaries to try to revive the first major ceasefire of the five-year Syrian war, which was put in place in February with U.S. and Russian backing but has since all but collapsed.

Syria announced temporary local truces in other areas last week but has so far failed to extend them to Aleppo, where government air strikes and rebel shelling have killed hundreds of civilians in the past week, including more than 50 people in a hospital that rebels say was deliberately targeted.

The Aleppo fighting threatens to wreck the first peace talks involving the warring parties, which are due to resume at an unspecified date after breaking up in April when the opposition delegation walked out in anger.

“We’re getting closer to a place of understanding, but we have some work to do, and that’s why we’re here,” Kerry said at the start of a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

After meeting Jubeir and U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, Kerry said he hoped for more clarity in the next day or so on restoring the nationwide ceasefire. The United States and Russia had agreed to keep extra staff in Geneva to work on it.

“Both sides, the opposition and the regime, have contributed to this chaos, and we are working over the next hours intensely in order to try to restore the cessation of hostilities,” Kerry said. De Mistura said he would travel to Moscow for talks.

The civil war in Syria has killed hundred of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and provided a base for Islamic State militants who have launched attacks elsewhere.

The fighting has drawn in global powers and regional states, while all diplomatic efforts to resolve it have foundered over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, who refuses to accept opposition demands that he leave power.

The United States and Russia have taken the leading roles in the latest diplomatic initiative, which began after Moscow joined the war last year with an air campaign that tipped the balance of power in favor of Assad, its ally.

So far, Syria has announced a “regime of calm” — a temporary local truce — in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus and the countryside of northern Latakia province, from Saturday morning. The Latakia truce was for three days and the Ghouta truce, initially for 24 hours, was also extended by another 48.

Both are areas where there has been heavy fighting, but Aleppo remains the biggest prize for Assad’s forces, who are hoping to take full control of the city, Syria’s largest before the war. The nearby countryside includes the last strip of the Syria-Turkish border in the hands of Arab Sunni rebels.

A Russian military official, General Sergei Kuralenko, said talks were under way on extending the regime of calm to Aleppo.

CIVILIANS KILLED

The opposition accuses the government of deliberately targeting civilians in rebel held parts of Aleppo to drive them out, and says the world must do more to force Damascus to halt air strikes.

For its part, the government says rebels have been heavily shelling government-held areas, proving that they are receiving more sophisticated weaponry from their foreign supporters, which include Arab states and Turkey.

A British-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has reported scores of civilians killed on both sides, although more in rebel-held territory.

Syrian state television said on Monday that a missile had hit the surroundings of Aleppo University Medical Hospital, and several civilians were injured by rebel mortar attacks on the residential area of Jamiyat Hay al Zahra in western Aleppo.

The rebel-held local council of Aleppo city announced a state of emergency in areas it runs due to the intense bombardment. About 350,000-400,000 people are believed to remain in rebel-held parts of what was once a city of 2 million.

Mohammad Muaz Abu Saleh, a senior councillor in the rebel Aleppo governate council, said residents were not abandoning opposition-held areas, despite the intense bombardment.

“Those who wanted to leave Aleppo have fled,” he said. Those who have stayed behind “have decided to stay under all circumstances of shelling and siege. Aleppo will remain populated with its people not leaving.”

Amar al-Absi, a resident of a rebel-held area, said: “There was heavy shelling throughout the night. In my neighborhood, Salah al-Deen, a missile hit a building that was empty and it was leveled but there were no casualties.”

In the countryside north of Aleppo, other rebel groups have been fighting against Islamic State fighters, who are not party to any ceasefire.

Amaq, a news agency affiliated to Islamic State, said the militants had gained control of the villages of Doudayan, Tel Shaer and Iykda from rival rebels in the northern Aleppo area near the border with Turkey.

They said they were able cut the supply routes of other rebels in the area, despite Turkish artillery shelling to aid the rebels against Islamic State.

The Observatory said the militants had staged a counterattack to regain ground lost from other rebels in to-and-fro fighting that has seen no major gains for any side.

Turkey said it had shelled Islamic State positions across the border and attacked them with drones on Sunday, killing 34 militants in retaliation for cross-border strikes. The death toll could not be confirmed.

Turkey, a NATO ally, is part of a U.S.-led coalition launching air strikes against Islamic State, but is also strongly opposed to the main Kurdish militia in Syria, Washington’s closest ally on the ground. It is one of the leading opponents of Assad and backers of rebels opposed to him.

Another major supporter of the rebels is Saudi Arabia, whose Foreign Minister Jubeir blamed the latest escalation on the government, condemned it as a “violation of all humanitarian laws” and called for Assad to step down.

“He can leave through a political process, which we hope he will do, or he will be removed by force,” Jubeir said alongside Kerry.

(Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Syrian peace talks limp on to next week without opposition

By John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. special envoy for Syria has vowed to take fragile peace talks into next week despite a walkout by the main armed opposition, a breakdown in a truce and signs that both sides are gearing up to escalate the five-year-old civil war.

Staffan de Mistura, who dismissed the opposition’s departure as “diplomatic posturing”, expected the delegation to return to the negotiating table. The opposition declared a “pause” this week because of a surge in fighting and too little movement from the government side on freeing detainees or allowing in aid.

Asked whether talks would carry on, de Mistura said on Thursday night: “We cannot let this drop. We have to renew the ceasefire, we have to accelerate humanitarian aid and we are going to ask the countries which are the co-sponsors to meet.”

The talks at U.N. headquarters in Geneva aim to halt a conflict that has allowed for the rise of the Islamic State group, sucked in regional and major powers and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

In an interview with French-language Radio Television Suisse (RTS), de Mistura said 400,000 people had been killed in the war, far higher than the previous U.N. toll which has varied from 250,000 to 300,000.

The war was tilted in Assad’s favor late last year by Russia’s intervention, supported on the ground by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who have been bolstered recently by the arrival of members of Iran’s regular army.

WASHINGTON CONCERNED BY RUSSIAN MOVES

The White House has expressed concern that Russia has repositioned artillery near the disputed city of Aleppo.

The Russian military moves have sharpened divisions in Washington over whether President Vladimir Putin genuinely backs the U.N.-led initiative to end the war or is using the talks to mask renewed military support for Assad.

“The regime is so reliant on external support that it is inconceivable that its allies don’t have the leverage to change its approach,” Britain’s envoy to the Syria peace talks, Gareth Bayley, said on Friday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the decision by the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to quit Geneva was not a loss for anyone except the HNC itself.

“If they want to ensure their participation (in the peace talks) only by putting ultimatums, with which others must agree, it’s their problem,” Lavrov said, adding:

“For God’s sake, we shouldn’t be running after them, we must work with those who think not about their career, not about how to please their sponsors abroad, but with those who are ready to think about the destiny of their country.”

The head of the Syrian delegation, Bashar Ja’afari, confirmed he met de Mistura to discuss humanitarian issues on Friday and would be meeting with him again on Monday.

Moscow and Washington sponsored the fragile cessation of hostilities that went into effect on Feb. 27 to allow talks to take place but has been left in tatters by increased fighting in the past week.

In Aleppo, government air strikes in different parts of the city killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens more on Friday, with the death toll expected to rise due to serious injuries, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Further southwest in Hama province, warplanes targeted rebel-held areas in the strategic Ghab plain that borders Latakia province, Assad’s coastal heartland.

Insurgents announced a new battle in Latakia earlier this week which they said was in response to ceasefire violations by the government side, launching fierce assaults there. Fighting raged in the area on Friday, said the British-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict with a network of sources on the ground.

ASSAD MAIN ISSUE

Endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, the Geneva peace talks marked the most serious effort yet to resolve the war, but failed to make progress on political issues, with no sign of compromise over the question of Assad’s future.

Government negotiators say Assad’s presidency is non-negotiable. Underlining confidence in Damascus, a top Assad aide reiterated its view that local truce agreements and “destroying terrorism” were the way toward a political solution.

The opposition wants a political transition without Assad, and says the government has failed to make goodwill measures such as releasing detainees and allowing enough aid into opposition-held areas besieged by the military.

The HNC, which is backed by Western nations and key Arab states, had this week urged more military support for rebels after declaring the truce was over and said talks would not re-start until the government stopped committing “massacres”.

All the main HNC members had left Geneva by Friday, leaving a handful of experts and a point of contact behind.

With violence escalating, peace talks might not resume for at least a year if they are abandoned, one senior Western diplomat said.

Syria is now a patchwork of areas controlled by the government, an array of rebel groups, Islamic State, and the well-organized Kurdish YPG militia.

On Friday, rare clashes between YPG fighters and government-allied forces and militiamen took place for nearly a third day, the Observatory said, in fighting which a Syrian Kurdish official said had killed 26 combatants. Kurdish and government forces have mostly avoided confrontation in the past.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Geneva; writing by Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff)

Assad’s future not up for discussion at peace talks

Hijab, chief coordinator HNC addresses a news conference aside of Syria peace talks in Geneva

AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian government’s chief negotiator said President Bashar al-Assad’s future was not up for discussion at peace talks, underlining the bleak prospects for reviving U.N.-led negotiations postponed by the opposition.

Bashar Ja’afari, speaking to Lebanese TV station al Mayadeen, also said his team was pushing for an expanded government as the solution to the war – an idea rejected by the opposition fighting for five years to topple Assad.

Ja’afari was reiterating the Syrian government’s position as spelt out last month ahead of the latest round of talks, indicating no shift on the part of Damascus as it continues to enjoy firm military backing from Russia and Iran.

“In Geneva we have one mandate only to arrive at an expanded national government only, this is our mandate … this is the goal we strive to achieve in the Geneva peace talks,” Ja’afari said in comments broadcast overnight. He added that these views were relayed to U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura.

Ja’afari also said Assad’s fate could never be raised in peace talks nor was it a matter that any U.N.-backed political process could deliberate.

“This matter (the presidency) does not fall under the jurisdiction of Geneva … this is a Syrian-Syrian affair, Security Council or no Security Council,” he said.

The Western-backed Syrian mainstream opposition decided on Monday to take a pause in peace talks. It said Damascus was not serious about moving towards a U.N.-backed political process they say would bring a transitional governing body with full executive powers without Assad.

A U.N. Security Council resolution in December called for the establishment of “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, a new constitution, and free and fair elections within 18 months.

Ja’afari also said any ideas such as those floated recently by de Mistura that sought to bridge the gap between the two sides should not touch existing state institutions or the army.

“We won’t allow any constitutional vacuum to take place. What does that mean? It means the army stays as it is and state institutions continue to function,” he added.

The opposition says restructuring the army and security apparatus is an essential step towards establishing a democratic Syria.

Ja’afari accused the Western-backed opposition of seeking to bring about a collapse of the country and replicate the chaos seen in Iraq and Libya after Western military intervention brought down long severing authoritarian rulers.

“They want to repeat the experience of Libya and Iraq … and turn Syria into a failed state,” he said.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Perry and Tom Heneghan)

U.N. halts Syria peace talks as government closes in on Aleppo

GENEVA (Reuters) – A United Nations envoy halted his attempts to conduct Syrian peace talks on Wednesday after the army, backed by Russian air strikes, advanced against rebel forces north of Aleppo, choking opposition supply lines from Turkey to the city.

Staffan de Mistura announced a three-week pause in the Geneva talks, the first attempt to negotiate an end to Syria’s war in two years, saying they needed immediate help from the rival sides’ international backers, principally the United States and Russia.

“I have indicated from the first day that I won’t talk for the sake of talking,” the envoy, who has described the negotiations as Syria’s last hope, told reporters.

Washington and Moscow’s support for opposite sides in the five-year-old war, which has drawn in regional states, created millions of refugees and enabled the rise of Islamic State, means a local conflict has become an increasingly fraught global standoff.

De Mistura has said a ceasefire is essential but Russia refused to suspend its air strikes. They helped government forces end a three-and-a-half year siege of the Shi’ite towns of Nubul and al-Zahraa on Wednesday, a step toward recapturing all of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war.

“I don’t see why these air strikes should be stopped,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, saying they were targeting al Qaeda-linked rebels.

Opposition delegation co-ordinator Riad Hijab said there would be no ceasefire until a transition without President Bashar al-Assad was in place.

Moscow accuses Washington, which is backing opponents of Assad, of supporting terrorists, while the U.S. State Department said the air strikes around Aleppo focused mainly on Assad’s foes rather than the Islamic State militants Russia says it is trying to defeat.

The United Nations said it had been told hundreds of families had been uprooted following “an unprecedented frequency” of air strikes in the past two days. Three aid workers were among the dead.

Its envoy had formally opened the peace talks on Friday but both sides denied they had ever begun.

Aleppo rebel factions, reeling from the assault, told the opposition delegation late on Tuesday they would bring down the negotiations within three days unless the offensive ended, a source close to the talks said.

De Mistura halted the talks until Feb. 25 after meeting the opposition.

“I have concluded frankly that after the first week of preparatory talks there is more work to be done, not only by us but by the stakeholders,” de Mistura said.

French Foreign Minister Fabius Laurent Fabius said his government supported De Mistura’s decision and he accused Assad and his allies of “torpedoing” the peace effort.

The opposition’s Hijab said the pause gave the West a chance to put pressure on the Assad government and Russia to end their assault and that he would not return until there was a change on the ground.

NO END TO RUSSIAN STRIKES

Government delegation chief Bashar al-Ja’afari accused the opposition of pulling out of the talks because it was losing the fight.

Developments on the ground were crucial,” he said, accusing de Mistura of providing them with political cover.

“Those who have the responsibility of this failure are the Saudis, Turks and Qataris. They are the real handlers and masters of the Riyadh group.”

Aleppo, 50 km (30 miles) south of the Turkish border, was Syria’s most populous city before the country’s descent into civil war. It has been partitioned into zones of government and insurgent control since 2012.

If the government regains control, it would be a big blow to insurgents’ hopes of toppling Assad after a war that has divided Syria between western areas still governed from Damascus and the rest of the country run by a patchwork of rebels.

The Levant Front rebel group said the breaking of the sieges of the Aleppo villages of Nubul and Zahraa came only after more than 500 raids by Russian airplanes.

One commander said opposition-held areas of the divided city were at risk of being encircled entirely by the government and allied militia, and appealed to foreign states that back the rebels to send more weapons.

Diplomats and opposition members said they were taken by surprise when de Mistura called for immediate efforts to begin ceasefire negotiations despite there being no official talks or goodwill measures from the Syrian government.

The opposition has said it will not negotiate unless the government stops bombarding civilian areas, lifts blockades on besieged towns and releases detainees.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said Russian and Syrian warplanes launched dozens of strikes on the rebel towns of Hayan and Hreitan in northern Aleppo on Wednesday.

“Less than 3 km separate the regime from cutting all routes to opposition-held Aleppo,” Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said. “It did in three days what it failed to do in 3-1/2 years.”

A U.S. official in Geneva called for an end to the daily bombing of civilians by Russian and government warplanes.

(Additional reporting by Firas Makdesi, Cecile Mantovani, Kinda Makieh and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Mariam Karouny, Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Beirut and Fatma Al Arini in Muscat; writing by Andrew Roche and Philippa Fletcher; editing by)

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