UN urges Syrian government to attend Geneva talks
GENEVA (AP) - The U.N.'s top envoy for Syria said on Monday he hopes and expects the Syrian government to show up for "serious talks" with the opposition this week, despite reluctance by Damascus officials to commit.
The United Nations is to resume the peace talks between the government and the Syrian opposition in this Swiss city on Tuesday. The opposition's delegation arrived Monday, after publishing a communique last week that said it was ready for talks "without preconditions."
The government has not yet named a delegation to the talks, and the pro-government newspaper Al-Watan said Damascus would postpone its arrival to Geneva, citing the opposition's position that President Bashar Assad must leave at the start of any transitional period that will lead Syria out of nearly seven years of civil war. The paper said the demand was a "hidden condition."
But U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura told the Security Council via videoconference "naturally we hope and indeed expect that the government will be on its way shortly."
A diplomatic official close to the negotiations said the U.N. was expecting the government could arrive late to Geneva, but meetings between the opposition and de Mistura would begin Tuesday as scheduled.
The talks follow a week of high level meetings that were expected to pave the way for a revival of the stalled diplomatic process. President Bashar Assad paid a surprise visit to Sochi, Russia, last week to thank Russian President Vladimir Putin for his vital military support. Putin directed Russia's air force to intervene on the side of Assad in 2015, likely saving the government from collapse when it appeared rebels would threaten the capital. Russia remains a key sponsor of the Damascus government and has shielded it against sanctions and punitive resolutions in the U.N. Security Council.
De Mistura told the Security Council he expected the government's participation "particularly in light of president Assad's commitment to (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin when they met in Sochi."
He stressed he would "not accept any preconditions by any party" to talks, and said the talks would be guided by a 2015 Security Council resolution mandating a political transition for Syria.
This latest round of Geneva talks, the eighth since 2012, will focus on getting to an "inclusive process" to draft and ratify a new constitution, said De Mistura.
This would put off one of the contentious issues between the government and opposition - the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Parallel talks between the two sides, in Sochi, expected for December, have been postponed until January or February, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Russia's diplomats did not set a date for their conference after spiking an initial plan to hold it on Nov. 18. The Syrian government said it welcomed the Sochi talks and would attend them. The opposition has said it prefers to meet the government under the auspices of the U.N.
In eastern Syria, meanwhile, opposition activists blamed Russia for an airstrike on a village held by the Islamic State that killed at least 25 people, all of them civilians.
The DeirEzzor 24 activist group said Sunday's strike on the village of Shaafa in the Deir el-Zour hit a residential compound where scores of internally displaced people were staying.
The village is near the town of Boukamal, which Syrian troops and their allies captured this month. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a higher death toll, saying 53 people were killed, including 21 children.
The Russian Defense Ministry said six Tu-22M3 long-range bombers scrambled from Russia and carried out a massed airstrike on "terrorists' property" in Deir el-Zour. Near Damascus, government airstrikes on Monday on several areas, including the suburbs of Arbeen, killed at least six people.
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Issa reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Edith Lederer at the United Nations and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.