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Stop hurling insults and listen, Pope Francis tells politicians

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Politicians should lower the volume of their debates and stop insulting each other, Pope Francis said on Friday, adding that leaders should be open to dialogue with perceived enemies or risk sowing the seeds of war.

“Insulting has become normal,” he said in a 45-minute-long improvised talk to university students in Rome. “We need to lower the volume a bit and we need to talk less and listen more.”

Francis, the son of Italian migrants to Argentina, also warned against anti-immigrant movements and urged that newcomers be treated “as human brothers and sisters”.

While the pope spoke mostly in general terms about the need for more dialogue in society as he answered questions from four students at the Roma Tre campus, he singled out politicians.

“In the newspapers, we see this one insulting that one, that one says this about the other one,” he said.

“But in a society where the standards of politics has fallen so much – I am talking about world society – we lose the sense of building society, of social co-existence, and social co-existence is built on dialogue.”

He spoke of “political debates on television where even before one (candidate) finishes talking, he is interrupted.”

Francis did not single out any countries for criticism. Italian political talk shows are often shrill and last year’s U.S. presidential debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were peppered with insults.

In one debate last September, for example, Trump called Clinton a “nasty woman” and she accused him of having “engaged in racist behavior”.

Francis urged everyone to seek “the patience of dialogue”.

He added: “Wars start inside our hearts, when I am not able to open myself to others, to respect others, to talk to others, to dialogue with others, that is how wars begin.”

The pope also warned against anti-immigrant movements, which have grown in the United States and a number of European countries, including Italy.

“Migrations are not a danger. They are a challenge for growth,” he said, adding it was important to integrate immigrants into host countries so they keep their traditions while learning new ones in a process of mutual enrichment.

He said immigrants should be welcomed “first of all as human brothers and sisters. They are men and women just like us.”

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Israel, Palestinians warned against solo steps harmful to peace

World leaders meet in Paris for Israel-Palestine Peace

By John Irish, Lesley Wroughton and Marine Pennetier

PARIS (Reuters) – Some 70 countries reaffirmed on Sunday that only a two-state solution could resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and warned against any unilateral steps by either side that could prejudge negotiations.

The final communique of a one-day international Middle East peace conference in Paris shied away from explicitly criticizing plans by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to move the U.S Embassy to Jerusalem, although diplomats said the wording sent a “subliminal” message.

Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel’s capital despite international objections.

Countries including key European and Arab states as well as the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council were in Paris for the conference, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as “futile”.

Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians were represented.

However, just five days before Trump is sworn in, the meeting was seen as a platform for countries to send a strong signal to the incoming American president that a two-state solution to the conflict could not be compromised on and that unilateral decisions could exacerbate tensions on the ground.

The participants “call on each side … to refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final-status issues, including, inter alia, on Jerusalem, borders, security, refugees and which they will not recognize,” the final communique said.

A French diplomatic source said there had been tough negotiations on that paragraph.

“It’s a tortuous and complicated paragraph to pass a subliminal message to the Trump administration,” the diplomat said.

REAFFIRMING RESOLUTION 2334

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters it would have been inappropriate to include the issue of moving the U.S. embassy, it being publicly debated in the United States.

Relations between the United States and Israel have soured during President Barack Obama’s administration, reaching a low point late last month when Washington declined to veto U.N. resolution 2334 demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory.

Paris has said the meeting did not aim to impose anything on Israel or the Palestinians and that only direct negotiations could resolve the conflict.

The final draft did not go into any details other than reaffirming U.N. Security Council resolutions, including 2334. Diplomats said that had been a source of friction in talks.

“When some are questioning this, it’s vital for us to recall the framework of negotiations. That framework is the 1967 borders and the main resolutions of the United Nations,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters.

Kerry, who abandoned his efforts to broker peace talks in April 2014, told reporters that the meeting had “moved the ball forward.”

“It underscores this is not just one administration’s point of view, this is shared by the international community broadly,” he said.

France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities, has tried to breathe new life into the peace process over the past year and argued that it should not play second fiddle to the war in Syria and the fight against Islamic State militants.

FOLLOW-UP MEETING?

The final statement said interested parties would meet again before year-end.

But Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Sunday that “this conference is among the last twitches of the world of yesterday … Tomorrow will look different and that tomorrow is very close.”

Britain added its criticism on Sunday. A Foreign Office statement said the Paris conference risked “hardening positions” given Israel had objected to it and that the U.S. administration is about to change.

Prime Minister Theresa May delivered a sharp rebuke on Israel last month to its U.S. ally when she scolded Secretary of State John Kerry for describing the Israeli government as the most right-wing in Israeli history. The criticism aligned her more closely with Trump.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who said on Saturday that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would kill off the peace process, said the Paris meeting would help at stopping “settlement activities and destroying the two-state solution through dictations and the use of force.”

(Additional reporting Lesley Wroughton in Paris and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Syrian rebels say froze talks on peace conference due to ceasefire violations

A rebel fighter stands on a lookout point with his weapon on the forth day of the truce, on al-Rayhan village front near the rebel held besieged city of Douma, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian rebel groups said on Monday they had decided to freeze any talks about their possible participation in Syrian peace negotiations being prepared by Moscow in Kazakhstan unless the Syrian government and its Iran-backed allies end what it said were violations of a ceasefire.

In a statement, the rebel groups also said that any territorial advances by the army and Iran-backed militias that are fighting alongside it would end the fragile ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, which back opposing sides, that came into effect on Friday.

“The regime and its allies have continued firing and committed many and large violations,” said the statement signed by the mainly moderate rebel groups operating under the umbrella of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The U.N. Security Council on Saturday gave its blessing to the ceasefire deal, which are slated to be followed by peace talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

The statement said the main violations were in an area northwest of Damascus in the rebel-held Wadi Barada valley, where government forces and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group have been trying to press advances in an ongoing campaign.

Rebels say the army is seeking to recapture the area, where a major spring provides most of Damascus’s water supplies and which lies on a major supply route from Lebanon to the Syrian capital used by Hezbollah.

Like previous Syria ceasefire deals, it has been shaky from the start, with repeated outbreaks of violence in some areas, but has largely held elsewhere.

The rebel groups questioned Russia’s ability to force the Syrian government and their allies to abide by the terms of the ceasefire deal.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Netanyahu’s response in full to John Kerry and the Obama administration

Benjamin Netanyahu Israel Prime Minister in meeting

By Kami Klein

Many times when an important speech is given, the American public is offered short snippets without the tone and completeness of the message. We feel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the actions of the Obama Administration is incredibly important. In order to fully understand the implications of this decision, we have provided links to videos that will help you understand Israel’s history. Additionally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s full response is listed below.

While brushing up on the history of Israel we have discovered information that will help you have a complete understanding of Israel’s stance and the continued attacks on her very existence. This history will be vital in the coming days when the people and supporters here in the United States must make a stand for Israel.

The first video is “The Middle East Problem” by American conservative and nationally syndicated radio talk show host, Dennis Prager. This incredibly concise lesson shows the history of modern Israel and the concessions that have already been made in the attempt for peace. The second video by Attorney Alan Dershowitz entitled “Are Israeli Settlements the Barrier to Peace?”. Please click on the titles to see these informative videos so that you have a clearer understanding on the true war that is taking place in the Middle East and why the recent Obama stance at the United Nations is dangerous for us all.

Please join us at Morningside with Michael Snyder on Saturday night, New Year’s Eve as he addresses these very issues on the topic “Obama betrays Israel, What comes next?”. This is a live stream event and begins at 7pm CST. Catch it live on Roku, Apple TV, or our website at watch us live!

The following is the Prime Minister’s complete response to John Kerry.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Statement in Response to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Speech

Before I explain why this speech was so disappointing to millions of Israelis, I want to say that Israel is deeply grateful to the United States of America, to successive American administrations, to the American Congress, to the American people.

We’re grateful for the support Israel has received over many, many decades. Our alliance is based on shared values, shared interests, a sense of shared destiny and a partnership that has endured differences of opinions between our two governments over the best way to advance peace and stability in the Middle East. I have no doubt that our alliance will endure the profound disagreement we have had with the Obama Administration and will become even stronger in the future.

But now I must express my deep disappointment with the speech today of John Kerry – a speech that was almost as unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution passed at the UN last week. In a speech ostensibly about peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary Kerry paid lip service to the unremitting campaign of terrorism that has been waged by the Palestinians against the Jewish state for nearly a century. What he did was to spend most of his speech blaming Israel for the lack of peace by passionately condemning a policy of enabling Jews to live in their historic homeland and in their eternal capital, Jerusalem.

Hundreds of suicide bombings, thousand, tens of thousands of rockets, millions of Israelis in bomb shelters are not throwaway lines in a speech; they’re the realities that the people of Israel had to endure because of mistaken policies, policies that at the time won the thunderous applause of the world. I don’t seek applause; I seek the security, and peace, and prosperity and the future of the Jewish state. The Jewish people have sought their place under the sun for 3,000 years, and we’re not about to be swayed by mistaken policies that have caused great, great damage.

Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders. Israel’s hand has been extended in peace to its neighbors from day one, from its very first day. We’ve prayed for peace, we’ve worked for it every day since then. And thousands of Israeli families have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our country and advance peace.

My family has been one of them; there are many, many others.

No one wants peace more than the people of Israel. Israel remains committed to resolving the outstanding differences between us and the Palestinians through direct negotiations. This is how we made peace with Egypt; this is how we made peace with Jordan; it’s the only way we’ll make peace with the Palestinians. That has always been Israel’s policy; that has always been America’s policy.

Here’s what President Obama himself said at the UN in 2011. He said: ‘Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.’

That’s what President Obama said, and he was right. And until last week this was repeated over and over again as American policy. Secretary Kerry said that the United States cannot vote against its own policy. But that’s exactly what it did at the UN, and that’s why Israel opposed last week’s Security Council resolution, because it effectively calls the Western Wall ‘occupied Palestinian Territory,’ because it encourages boycotts and sanctions against Israel – that’s what it effectively does, and because it reflects a radical shift in US policy towards the Palestinians on final status issues – those issues that we always agreed, the US and Israel, have to be negotiated directly, face to face without preconditions.

That shift happened despite the Palestinians walking away from peace and from peace offers time and time again, despite their refusal to even negotiate peace for the past eight years, and despite the Palestinian Authority inculcating a culture of hatred towards Israel in an entire generation of young Palestinians.

Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with the American Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, to mitigate the damage that this resolution has done and ultimately, to repeal it.

Israel hopes that the outgoing Obama Administration will prevent any more damage being done to Israel at the UN in its waning days. I wish I could be comforted by the promise that the US says we will not bring any more resolutions to the UN. That’s what they said about the previous resolution. We have it on absolutely incontestable evidence that the United States organized, advanced and brought this resolution to the United Nations Security Council. We’ll share that information with the incoming administration. Some of it is sensitive, it’s all true. You saw some of it in the protocol released in an Egyptian paper. There’s plenty more; it’s the tip of the iceberg.

So they say, but we didn’t bring it. And they could take John Kerry’s speech with the six points. It could be raised in the French international conference a few days from now and then brought to the UN. So France will bring it, or Sweden – not a noted friend of Israel – could bring it. And the United States could say, well, we can’t vote against our own policy, we’ve just annunciated it.

I think the United States, if it’s true to its word, or at least if it’s now true to its word, should now come out and say we will not allow any resolutions, any more resolutions in the Security Council on Israel. Period. Not we will bring or not bring – we will not allow any, and stop this game, the charades.

I think that the decisions that are vital to Israel’s interests and the future of its children, they won’t be made through speeches in Washington or votes in the United Nations or conferences in Paris. They’ll be made by the Government of Israel around the negotiating table, making them on behalf of the one and only Jewish state – a sovereign nation that is the master of its own fate.

And one final thought – I personally know the pain, the loss and the suffering of war. That’s why I’m so committed to peace. Because for anyone who’s experienced it, as I have, war and terror are horrible. I want young Palestinian children to be educated like our children, for peace. But they’re not educated for peace. The Palestinian Authority educates them to lionize terrorists and to murder Israelis.

My vision is that Israelis and Palestinians both have a future of mutual recognition, of dignity, mutual respect, co-existence. But the Palestinian Authority tells them that they will never accept, should never accept the existence of a Jewish state.

So, I ask you, how can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence?

See, this conflict is not about houses, or communities in the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, the Gaza district or anywhere else. This conflict is and has always been about Israel’s very right to exist. That’s why my hundreds of calls to sit with President Abbas for peace talks have gone unanswered. That’s why my invitation to him to come to the Knesset was never answered. That’s why the Palestinian government continues to pay anyone who murders Israelis a monthly salary.

The persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state remains the core of the conflict and its removal is the key to peace.

Palestinian rejection of Israel and support for terror are what the nations of the world should focus on if they truly want to advance peace, and I can only express my regret and say that it’s a shame that Secretary Kerry does not see this simple truth.

Aleppo hit by air strikes and shelling as evacuation stalls

By Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The planned evacuation of rebel districts of Aleppo stalled on Wednesday as air strikes and heavy shelling hit the city and Iran was said to have imposed new conditions on the deal.

Iran, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main backers in the battle that has all but ended four years of rebel resistance in the city, wanted a simultaneous evacuation of wounded from two villages, Foua and Kefraya, that are besieged by rebel fighters, according to rebel and U.N. sources.

Rebel groups said that was just an excuse to hold up the evacuation from a shrunken insurgent enclave shattered by a powerful government offensive. A pro-opposition TV station said the operation could now be delayed until Thursday.

A ceasefire brokered on Tuesday by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey was intended to end years of fighting in the city, giving the Syrian leader his biggest victory in more than five years of war.

But air strikes, shelling and gunfire erupted on Wednesday and Turkey accused government forces of breaking the truce. Syrian state television said rebel shelling had killed six people.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said however that rebel resistance was likely to end in the next two or three days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan will discuss Aleppo later on Wednesday, the Kremlin was quoted as saying.

Officials in the military alliance backing Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the evacuation, expected to start in the early hours of Wednesday, had stalled.

Nobody had left by dawn under the plan, according to a Reuters witness waiting at the departure point, where 20 buses stood with engines running but showed no sign of moving into rebel districts.

People in eastern Aleppo packed their bags and burned personal belongings, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militia allies.

In what appeared to be a separate development from the planned evacuation, the Russian defence ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366 fighters had left rebel-held districts over the past 24 hours.

A total of 15,000 people, including 4,000 rebel fighters, wanted to leave Aleppo, according to a media unit run by the Syrian government’s ally Hezbollah.

RAPID ADVANCES

The evacuation plan was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire.

By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shi’ite militias from across the region.

Rebels groups have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran.

Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned the war in Assad’s favor after rebel advances across western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.

The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all Syria.

Russia regards the fall of Aleppo as a major victory against terrorists, as it and Assad characterize all the rebel groups, both Islamist and nationalist, fighting to oust him.

But at the United Nations, the United States said the violence in the city, besieged and bombarded for months, represented “modern evil”.

The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed the rise of Islamic State.

As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the plight of the 250,000 civilians who were thought to remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army advance began at the end of November.

Tens of thousands of them fled to parts of the city held by the government or by a Kurdish militia, and tens of thousands more retreated further into the rebel enclave as it rapidly shrank under the army’s lightning advance.

The rout of rebels in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”. There were food and water shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed.

“SHOT IN THEIR HOMES”

On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of “slaughter”.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. “There could be many more.”

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields”.

Fear stalked the city’s streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army’s arrival.

For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution added to the daily terror of bombardment.

“People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to die,” said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held districts.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Tom Perry, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Peter Millership, Paul Tait and Giles Elgood)

Peres funeral, attended by Obama, briefly brings Israeli, Palestinian leaders together

Still image taken from video of Israeli politician's funeral

By Jeffrey Heller and Jeff Mason

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli and Palestinian leaders shook hands during a brief chat and U.S. President Barack Obama gently reminded them of the “unfinished business of peace” at the funeral Friday of Shimon Peres, the last of a generation of Israel’s founding fathers.

But there was no indication that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s rare visit to Jerusalem and the amiable words he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged would lead to any movement in long-stalled peacemaking.

Peres, a former president and prime minister who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, shared a Nobel Prize for the interim land-for-peace accords he helped reach with the Palestinians as Israel’s foreign minister in the 1990s.

Long-hailed abroad and by supporters in Israel as a visionary, Peres was seen by his critics as an overly optimistic dreamer in the harsh realities of the Middle East.

“I know from my conversations with him, his pursuit of peace was never naive,” Obama said in his eulogy of Peres, who did much in the early part of his 70 years in public life to build up Israel’s powerful military and nuclear weapons capabilities.

With divisions deep over Jewish settlement in Israeli-occupied territory that Palestinians seek for a state, as well as other issues, U.S.-sponsored negotiations on a final agreement between the two sides have been frozen since 2014.

Netanyahu and Abbas have not held face-to-face talks since 2010. Abbas opted to attend Peres’s funeral, making the short drive from nearby Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, through Israeli military checkpoints.

“Long time, long time,” Abbas told Netanyahu and the prime minister’s wife Sara, after shaking his hand before the start of the ceremony held in the “Great Leaders of the Nation” section of Mount Herzl cemetery, overlooking a forested valley.

Welcoming Abbas, as participants recorded the encounter on their mobile phones, Netanyahu said of the Palestinian leader’s attendance: “It’s something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.”

In Israel for just a few hours to pay tribute to Peres, Obama said in the eulogy that Abbas’s “presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace”. He was the only speaker to acknowledge Abbas’s presence.

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, hundreds of Palestinians rallied after Friday prayers condemning the participation of Palestinian and Arab leaders in the funeral.

FRONT ROW

Abbas was given a front-row seat between European Council President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Obama briefly greeted the Palestinian leader with a kiss on each cheek before walking down the line to stand next to Netanyahu.

“Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, (Peres) insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination,” Obama said in his address.

U.S. officials have held open the possibility of Obama making another formal effort to get peace negotiations back on the agenda before he leaves office in January, possibly via a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Netanyahu recalled in his eulogy that he had once argued with Peres, a former leader of the center-left Labour Party, about what was more important for Israel – peace or security.

“Shimon, you said, ‘Bibi: the best security is peace.’ And I said, ‘without security there can be no peace.'”

“And you know what our surprise conclusion was? We are both right… The goal is not power. Power is the vehicle. The goal is existence and co-existence,” Netanyahu said.

Peres, who suffered a stroke two weeks ago, was buried in a Jewish religious ceremony in a plot between two other former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals struck with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Gone too soon,” one of Peres’s two sons, Yoni, quoted his father as telling him when asked what he wanted as his epitaph.

Amos Oz, the celebrated Israeli author and peace campaigner who was a long-time friend of Peres, said in his eulogy it was time to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. “We must split this house into two apartments,” Oz said. “Where are the brave and wise leaders who will continue his legacy?”

The rulers of Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994, were not in attendance. But the Egyptian foreign minister came and King Abdullah of Jordan sent a telegram of condolences.

Britain’s Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British leaders David Cameron and Tony Blair also were at the funeral.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Luke Baker and Mark Heinrich)

U.N. says U.S.-Russia talks on Syria crucial as aid stops rolling in

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian government has effectively stopped aid convoys this month and the besieged city of Aleppo is close to running out of fuel, making U.S.-Russian peace talks in Geneva on Friday even more urgent, the United Nations said.

“Convoys are not rolling at the moment in Syria,” the U.N. humanitarian chief told reporters in Geneva, although an air bridge to the Kurdish-controlled northeastern city of Hasaka has continued operating, and there have been a handful of evacuations from the besieged towns of Foua and Madaya.

Syria’s government vets U.N. aid plans on a monthly basis, and its late and partial approval of the program for this month meant no aid had yet gone in, Stephen O’Brien said.

“We are on Sept 9, and the supplies under the September plan have not yet started.”

As he spoke U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were meeting nearby for a third time in as many weeks to clinch a nationwide ceasefire deal.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, with de O’Brien, said the talks were “addressing complex, delicate and difficult issues. “The conclusions could make, lets’s be frank, a major difference,” he said.

Helping around 250,000 people besieged in eastern Aleppo, where a battle for control has escalated in the past month, was becoming urgent, he said.

“There is a growing concern about eastern Aleppo: the issue about food, the issue about the possibility that within perhaps the next few days it will turn out to be dark because there is no fuel, problems of water.”

Opposition groups say Russia, which co-sponsors the U.N. peace process, is part of the problem and not the solution, because it has provided strong air support for fighters loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We ask any party which has influence on any of the warring parties to ensure that they recognize that the demand for humanitarian access is paramount and rises above all the other vested interests,” O’Brien said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Colombia to agree bilateral ceasefire with rebels this week: president

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia will reach agreement on a bilateral ceasefire at peace talks with leftist FARC rebels this week, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday, in what he said would mark a key advance in the negotiations to end 50 years of war.

Santos said this week the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels will complete the more than three-year-old negotiations by July 20.

“If the negotiators make a final effort to finish the definitive point that is a ceasefire and the end to hostilities, we will have taken a fundamental step in attaining peace,” Santos said in a speech at an education event in Bogota.

“I appeal to God that he gives us the strength to finish these accords this very week, because we have almost completed them.”

Government sources said the agreement would likely not mean the ceasefire would begin right away, but rather that the announcement would lay out the details of a ceasefire set to begin when a final peace deal is signed.

A ceasefire accord will likely include details on how the rebels will demobilize, the sources said, and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, may sign the accord with Santos on Thursday or Friday.

The two sides have reached agreements on more than half a dozen topics but have yet to agree terms for the ceasefire or on how exactly a referendum for Colombians to approve the peace deal will be organized.

The FARC called a unilateral ceasefire nearly a year ago and the government responded by halting air strikes on rebel camps.

Negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline for signing a deal in March, and Santos has come under fire over the past week for comments about the referendum he has promised will take place to approve a deal.

Timochenko took to Twitter earlier on Tuesday to say he was against announcing a date by which the talks would finish.

“Practice has demonstrated that setting dates hurts the process, even more when there isn’t an accord,” the rebel leader tweeted. “Although we are advancing, we aren’t there yet.”

Latin America’s longest war has killed some 220,000 people and displaced millions of others since 1964. Tens of thousands have gone missing.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb, additional reporting by Monica Garcia; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Netanyahu says willing to discuss Arab initiative for peace

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu enters to a media conference together with Israel's new Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of far-right Yisrael Beitenu party, following Lieberman's swearing-in ceremony at the Knesset, the Israeli parlia

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect on Monday of reviving a 2002 Arab peace initiative that offers Israel diplomatic recognition from Arab countries in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s comments were a formal response to a speech last week by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who promised Israel warmer ties if it accepted efforts to resume peace talks.

“The Arab peace initiative includes positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said, echoing comments he made a year ago to Israeli reporters.

“We are willing to negotiate with the Arab states revisions to that initiative so that it reflects the dramatic changes in the region since 2002 but maintains the agreed goal of two states for two peoples,” he added.

His comments were made also in English in a speech that was mostly in Hebrew – a device Netanyahu often uses when he wants to make a statement to the international community.

Netanyahu spoke moments after ultra nationalist Avigdor Lieberman was sworn in as Israel’s new defense minister and Israel’s fragile right-wing coalition gained vital support in parliament.

Lieberman concurred and Netanyahu appeared to indicate that the new far-right defense minister’s inclusion in the government did not spell an end to peace efforts with the Palestinians.

The original Arab plan offered full recognition of Israel but only if it gave up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and agreed to a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.

But in 2013, after the initiative’s terms were softened to include possible land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians, Netanyahu signaled a readiness to consider it.

Previous attempts to engage the adversaries have come to nought. The Palestinians say Israeli settlement expansion denies them a viable state they seek in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and a capital in Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel has demanded tighter security measures from the Palestinians and a crackdown on militants who have attacked or threaten the safety of Israeli citizens.

In the last half year, Palestinian attacks have killed 28 Israelis and two visiting U.S. citizens. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 195 Palestinians, 134 of whom Israel has said were assailants. Others were killed in clashes and protests.

France is set to host a peace conference of to revive peace efforts on June 3 with the participation of ministers from the Middle East Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – the Arab League, the U.N. Security Council and about 20 countries.

Neither Israel, which has opposed the gathering, nor the Palestinians, who have welcomed it, have been invited.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller, writing by Ori Lewis)

World Leaders to Meet this Weekend to Discuss an Ending for Syrian Crisis

In the most serious effort yet, world leaders are meeting this weekend in Vienna to end the nearly 5-year-old Syrian civil war as well as discuss a Russian proposal that calls for early elections.

And while top diplomats from almost 20 countries agree that it is time to end the bloodshed in Syria, there is no clear plan for how to make that dream a reality, according to the Associated Press.

However, the Washington Post reports that there is at least a determination to end the crisis as a senior administration official stated that the world leaders plan on having rapid-fire meetings until a plan is developed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will also be attending the meeting. There are high hopes that the peace draft the Kremlin reportedly created will at least be a start to planning the end of the civil war, especially now that Russia and the U.S. are starting to see eye-to-eye on restructuring the political system in Syria, according to the Associated Press.

Some of the other countries at the meeting include Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Iran is a key ally to Russia and the Syrian regime while Saudi Arabia and the U.S. has backed Syrian opposition forces. Syria will not be included in the meeting.

Initial peace talks began in an official meeting between world leaders on October 30.

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