‘Temporary pause’ in Syria talks until February 25 as fighting rages on

The UN special envoy for Syria announced on Wednesday a “temporary pause” until Feb. 25 of troubled talks in Switzerland aimed at ending the civil war. “There’s more work to be done,” Staffan de Mistura told reporters in Geneva.
The opposition’s chief coordinator Riad Hijab, who diplomats say is a unifying figure for the disparate rebel side, arrived in Geneva and was joined by de Mistura for talks at a hotel used by the opposition.
The UN struggled to save Syrian peace talks as Damascus and its Russian allies seized territory in fierce fighting and rifts widened among embattled rebel factions.
The Syrian army said on Wednesday its forces had broken through rebel defenses to reach two Shiite villages in Aleppo province which had been besieged for three years. Rebels said the breakthrough came after hundreds of bombing raids by Russian warplanes.
Aleppo factions, reeling from an “unprecedented” onslaught, issued an ultimatum to the opposition delegation late on Tuesday at the so far still-born Geneva talks late on Tuesday, a source close to the talks said.
They threatened to bring down the peace negotiations within three days unless the offensive by government and Russian forces ended.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura announced the formal start two days ago of the Geneva negotiations, the first attempt in two years to negotiate an end to a war.
But talks have not even begun, and pessimism over their chances has grown. “It seems the first phase of preparations (for talks) will take a much longer time than expected,” government delegation chief Bashar Al-Ja’afari told Reuters in an interview in Geneva on Wednesday.
“The official discussions did not take off yet unfortunately. We are still discussing how to proceed.”
Ja’afari said the government was still unclear on who it would be negotiating with from the fragmented opposition side.
“I couldn’t tell you much about what’s going on because we are waiting for Godot, and Godot hasn’t come yet,” he said, referring to Samuel Beckett’s never-resolved play “Waiting for Godot.”
De Mistura said “If there is a failure this time after we tried twice at conferences in Geneva, for Syria there will be no more hope. We must absolutely try to ensure that there is no failure.”

Source: Arab News