Envoy holds separate meetings with government, rebels

Syrian peace talks under the auspices of the United Nations resumed in Geneva on Thursday, 10 months after falling apart over escalating bloodshed in the war-torn country.

The talks come as Turkish troops and Syrian opposition forces seized the centre of the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, breaking a weeks-long deadlock between the two sides at the periphery of the town, according to Turkey’s state news agency.

Battle for al-Bab

Pro-government forces are just three km south of al-Bab, though clashes with the opposition forces in the area have so far been limited.

The Geneva talks are the latest bid to end Syria’s catastrophic six-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced some 11 million more.

UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura convened separate meetings with representatives of the government and opposition delegations on Thursday morning. He said he hoped to convene a “sort of welcoming ceremony” and bilateral talks later in the day. A day earlier, Mr. De Mistura played down expectations for the talks, saying he did not expect any breakthroughs, but all parties are aware that the dynamics in Syria have changed since talks were last in Geneva in April.

Abdulahad Astepho, a member of the opposition delegation, said rebels would feature in a “greater role” in this round of talks, reflecting the changing dynamics inside Syria, where factions are drifting away from the exiled opposition leadership and closer to ultraconservative groups like Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Sham Front.

Astana talks

The Geneva talks come after ceasefire discussions in Astana, Kazakhstan, that were coordinated largely by Turkey, the opposition’s closest state backer in the civil war, and Russia, whose air power has supported Mr. Assad’s forces. In those meetings, the rebels sat face-to-face with a government delegation a first and the exiled political opposition was present only on the sidelines. They have not yet sat face-to-face under UN auspices.

This is the fourth round of U.N.-mediated talks since early last year.

Despite the ceasefire, violations nevertheless occur on a daily basis, in part because of the ambiguous wording of the original agreement, signed in Ankara in late December.