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UN to attend, contribute to Syria talks in Kazakhstan: UN official

Xinhua, January 6, 2017 Adjust font size:

The UN Special Envoy for Syria said Thursday that preparations were being made to attend Russian and Turkish-backed peace talks scheduled to take place in the Kazakh capital of Astana later this month.

Staffan de Mistura added he hoped the initiative would pave the way for successful UN-mediated Syrian negotiations next month.

"We, the UN, believe that any effort that consolidates the cessation of hostilities and helps in preparing for a discussion that will take place here in Geneva in February is certainly welcomed," de Mistura told reporters following a humanitarian task force meeting.

"We plan to attend and we will contribute to it to hopefully make it a success and produce deliverables that we can then use at the Geneva talks," he added.

The UN official said last month that he planned to resume Syrian negotiations on Feb. 8 to try and broker a political end to the five-year conflict which has killed some 400,000 people.

Talks, which will involve both the Syrian government delegation and opposition forces vying to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have been on hold since April last year amid protracted violence and a systemic humanitarian crisis.

According to the Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland, both Moscow and Ankara have expressed their intention to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance in the war-torn country.

The latest cessation of hostilities agreement which came into effect on Dec. 30, as well as the plan for peace talks, received the unanimous backing of the UN Security Council on Dec. 31.

The ceasefire is the third in Syria after two previous ones failed last year. The first was reached in February 2016 and lasted for three months before collapsing, while the second was established in September and was observed for only a week.

A number of rebel groups announced Monday that they were freezing talks on planned negotiations with the Syrian government, casting a shadow over the ailing peace process of the Middle Eastern country. Endit