24 January,2017 09:40 AM IST | | Agencies
If successful, more political talks are expected in Geneva
Bashar Jaafari, Syrian Ambassador to the UN and head of the Syrian delegation attends the talks on Syrian peace at a hotel hall in Astana, on Monday. Pic/AP
Astana: Syria talks brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran and seeking to bolster a shaky ceasefire in place since last month opened yesterday in Kazakhstan, marking the first face-to-face meeting between the Damascus government and rebel factions fighting to overthrow it.
The gathering in Astana, the Kazakh capital, is also the start of a new effort to end six years of carnage that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced half of Syria's population and sent millions of refugees to neighbouring countries and Europe.
The UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is participating in the talks, which if successful, are expected to be followed by more political talks in February in Geneva. The new US administration is not directly involved, because of the "immediate demands of the transition", the State Department said on Saturday, but Washington is represented by the US ambassador to Kazakhstan, George Krol, who attended yesterday's opening session at the luxury Rixos President Hotel in Astana.
Osama Abo Zayd, a rebel media representative to the talks, told The Associated Press before the start that the scope of the negotiations is limited to strengthening the ceasefire.
"There's no significance to negotiations if the people on whose behalf we are negotiating are being killed," he said, adding that there has been absolutely no discussion about elections or Assad's future.
