UN committed to holding intra-Syrian talks by end of August

The UN special envoy, Staffan de Mistura, is committed to holding intra-Syrian talks by the end of August, a UN spokesman said here on Thursday, citing the deputy UN special envoy for Syria.

Ramzy Ezzeldine Ramzy told reporters in Geneva that "for these talks to be fruitful, the cessation of hostilities has to stand and be reinforced," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

De Mistura, the UN mediator, has been vying to get the intra-Syrian talks back on track since negotiations seeking to reach a political agreement by Aug. 1 were put on hold in April this year.

Both the humanitarian situation in the war-torn country since 2011 and fighting between government troops, opposition forces and terrorist factions have prevented negotiations from resuming.

Regarding Aleppo in northern Syria, Ramzy noted that the United Nations is currently in intensive discussions with Russia and the government of Syria to ensure that the civilians are protected and that standards of international humanitarian law are respected in any aid operation, Dujarric said.

In the same press encounter, the special advisor to the UN special envoy, Jan Egeland, said that UN and other humanitarian workers had hoped to reach 1.2 million people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas affected by conflict in July, but only reached about 40 percent of that target, largely because of continued fighting, the spokesman said.

Egeland said that humanitarian pauses and a temporary end to the fighting are badly needed now, more than ever, for the city of Aleppo.

"It is heartbreaking really, for humanitarian workers that are ready with supplies, with trucks and people who are willing to risk a lot, that we were prevented from reaching 60 percent of (those) we had hoped to," Egeland said. Enditem