Opposition has ‘no optimism’ for peace talks

Mr Mistura is supposed to be meeting with representatives of the opposition High Negotiation Committee (HNC) on Tuesday, however an HNC spokesman said they were still undecided whether or not the meeting would take place.

The United Nations strained to keep faltering Syrian peace talks alive on Wednesday as Damascus tried to press home gains against rebels and its ally Russian Federation said its air strikes would go on until “terrorists” were defeated. The HNC didn’t come for a later meeting scheduled with Mr.de Mistura over concern about the rising attacks, a representative said on condition of anonymity.

The Swedish-Italian diplomat said he expected the talks to be “complicated and hard”, but that Syria’s people deserved to “see something concrete, apart from a long, painful negotiation”. “We are in the preparatory stage before the official launch of indirect negotiations”, Bashar al-Jaafari told reporters after a 2-1/2 hour meeting with De Mistura.

The meeting followed de Mistura’s announcement on Monday that indirect talks between the bitter foes in the nearly five-year conflict had at last begun in earnest.

“Riad Hijab has arrived for talks in Geneva”, the committee said on Twitter.

Gareth Bayley, the British special envoy for Syria, took aim at Moscow’s tactics, tweeting: “Reports of further intense Russian strikes in Syria on moderate opposition in Aleppo and Homs”.

On Monday, pro-government forces overran opposition-held areas north of Aleppo city, disrupting supply lines and threatening to cut off rebel-held territories to the west, according to government and opposition accounts.

The new round of Syrian peace talks was first announced as kicking off on January 29 in Geneva’s Palais des Nations with the arrival of the Syrian government delegation, despite its opposition counterpart not being present in the Swiss city.

“We feel that they have a very strong point, because this is the voice of the Syrian people asking for that”.

An additional 6.5 million have been internally displaced and 13.5 million people inside the country are in dire need of humanitarian aid.

In November, world powers agreed in Vienna on an ambitious roadmap that foresees six months of intra-Syrian talks, leading to a new constitution and free elections within 18 months.

On Sunday, the extremist Sunni group said it was a behind multiple bombings at a revered Shiite shrine south of Damascus that monitors said killed more than 70 people.

The latest aid delivery is a “positive development”, said Basma Kodmani, a member of the opposition’s negotiating team in Geneva, but “it is way below what we are hoping to see happen”.

The advances, backed by allied militia and heavy Russian air support and which Syrian state media also reported, appear aimed at breaking through rebel-held territory north of Aleppo to reach the Shi’ite villages of Nubul and al-Zahraa.

In an interview with Reuters, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Russian President Vladimir Putin was undermining worldwide efforts to end the war by bombing opponents of Islamic State in an attempt to bolster Assad. But he said it did not amount to “recognition of them as legitimate partners” for peace, adding that they “are considered terrorist groups”.