United Nations envoy hopes to start peace talks Friday

The head of the Syrian opposition’s negotiating team said he was not optimistic about upcoming peace talks, casting further doubt on whether the group will attend meetings planned for Friday in Geneva.

“There is consensus in the High Committee on being positive in our decision (to accept)”, spokesman Salim al-Muslat told the Arabic news channel Arabiya al-Hadath.

Ismael also said the United States believes the PYD should be represented in the intra-Syrian peace talks, even though it has not voiced its support publicly.

The U.N.-backed talks bringing together representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition were originally scheduled to begin on Monday but are now set for Friday after wrangling over issues including who should attend.

Moscow has sought to have some of those excluded participate in the talks either within a broad opposition delegation, or in a second opposition delegation to the negotiations. Hijab said earlier this month the United States had backtracked on its position over Syria, softening its stance to accommodate Russian Federation.

Preparations for the talks have been beset by problems including a dispute over who should represent the opposition.

Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been calling for the PYD to be included in the opposition delegation, but the Saudi-backed Sunni Arab opposition has rejected that idea.

Staffan de Mistura told reporters in Geneva he would be sending out invitations on Tuesday.

Turkey considers the PYD and its military wing the People s Protection Units (YPG) to be offshoots of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which wages an armed insurgency against Ankara.

Syria’s most powerful Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said it had not yet received an invitation.

Turkey is determined to take a stand and fight against all terrorist organizations, whatever their reason or source is, Turkey’s prime minister said Tuesday.

Turkey s objection, which comes after Moscow said the inclusion of the PYD was essential to the talks success, threatens to be a major blow to the process seeking to find a solution to the nearly five-year civil war.

The renewed efforts to end Syria’s war, which has killed more than 260,000 people and displaced half the country’s population, come as the conflict approaches its fifth year.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Syrian Army, with the help of Russian airstrikes, seized control overnight of a strategic rebel-held town near the border with Jordan. It was the first significant gain for Damascus in that area since the start of the Russian intervention on September 30.

The first round is expected to last between two and three weeks.

“We did not expect nor want the Russian side to be like this supporting Assad”.