UN envoy declares ‘official beginning’ to Syria peace talks

Another thorny issue is the inclusion of representatives from two Islamic rebel groups – Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Islam – in the opposition’s delegation.

The blasts went off in the Damascus suburb of Sayyda Zeinab, about 600 meters (yards) from one of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims.

The meeting occurred when bombings claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants yesterday killed about 60 people near a revered Shi’ite shrine outside the Syrian capital Damascus.

A UN Security Council resolution on December 18 approved a draft resolution on peace process in Syria.

Salem al-Meslet, spokesman for the opposition’s High National Committee (HNC), told reporters on Sunday that the bloc would not join the talks before the implementation of their humanitarian demands.

The civil war has killed over 250,000 people, driven more than 10 million from their homes and drawn in global powers.

Syrian chief negotiator and the country’s ambassador to the U.N. Bashar Ja’afar, right, holds a press conference during the round of negotiations between the Syrian government and the opposition in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016.

Khawla Mattar, spokeswoman for special envoy Staffan de Mistura, told AFP there was “the need to meet” with opposition first, and that a meeting with the government would happen “maybe another day”.

Earlier the Interior Ministry had reported at least 45 dead and 110 people wounded, while state television showed footage of burning buildings and wrecked cars in the neighborhood.

De Mistura has decided that these will be “proximity talks”, rather than face-to-face sessions, meaning that he plans to keep the delegations in separate rooms and shuttle between them. Opposition fighters have lately lost ground on the battlefield, mainly because of Russian airstrikes in support of government forces. “If we talk about the fight against terrorism, it should be built on common principles without double standards and without dividing terrorists into “good” and “bad”.

“What negotiations are they talking about?” she said.

The HNC’s humanitarian demands for the Syrian government come after Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Saturday that a further 16 had starved to death in Madaya, a settlement thought to be controlled by government forces and their allies in Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, who have imposed blockades on food and medicine entering the city.

The committee had said it wouldn’t participate in indirect talks with the government of Bashar al-Assad until the regime took steps to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, release political prisoners and end the bombing of civilians in opposition-held areas.

The powerful Army of Islam rebel group is part of HNC’s delegation to Geneva, and the HNC’s chief negotiator and Army of Islam member Mohammed Alloush was expected in Geneva on Monday.

Assad’s government has long referred to all those fighting to overthrow him as terrorists, but has agreed to negotiations with some armed groups in the latest talks.

The indirect talks on ending Syria’s almost five-year conflict had been scheduled to start on January 25, but were postponed until the 29th when Jaafari and his delegation sat down with the UN’s Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura.