MOSCOW: The next round of UN-sponsored Syrian peace talks in Geneva will take place in the second half of January, special envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.
This month’s negotiations had gone badly, the UN envoy admitted to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a meeting in Moscow.
On Friday De Mistura will also attend the latest round of the parallel Russian-backed peace talks in Astana. Delegations from Russia, Iran and Turkey, along with Syrian regime representatives and a 20-strong opposition delegation, arrived in the Kazakh capital on Thursday.
Alexander Lavrentiev, the Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy in Astana, said there was no reason for US forces to remain in Syria and Washington’s stated reasons for maintaining a military presence there were groundless.
Syria’s opposition urged Moscow to use its influence with Bashar Assad. “We are asking the Russian side, now more than ever before, to put pressure on the regime to push it toward a political settlement,” the opposition delegation said.
Their negotiators will also focus on the reinforcement of the cease-fire, especially in the de-escalation zones, the lifting of sieges on all towns and villages and the delivery of assistance to those in need, the opposition said.
In Syria, at least 16 people died while waiting for medical evacuation from Syria’s besieged Eastern Ghouta region. A list put together several months ago of nearly 500 civilians in desperate need of evacuation was rapidly shrinking, Jan Egeland, head of the UN’s humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said in Geneva.
“That number is going down, not because we are evacuating people, but because they are dying,” he said.
Moscow has led the talks in Astana since the start of the year as it tries to turn its decisive military intervention in Syria into a negotiated settlement. The Kremlin also hopes to convene a “peace and reconciliation” congress in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, but no date has been set amid disputes over who should attend.
The Russian parliament voted on Thursday to extend Russia's lease on its Syrian naval base at Tartus for 49 years. The agreement allows Russia to keep 11 vessels there at a time, including nuclear-powered ships.
New Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month
New Syrian peace talks in Geneva next month
Iraq starts investigations into Daesh detainees moved from Syria
- Those detainees are among 7,000 Daesh suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters
- In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s judiciary announced on Monday it has begun its investigations into more than 1,300 Daesh group detainees who were transferred from Syria as part of a US operation.
“Investigation proceedings have started with 1,387 members of the Daesh terrorist organization who were recently transferred from the Syrian territory,” the judiciary’s media office said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for Daesh.
“Under the supervision of the head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, several judges specializing in counterterrorism started the investigation.”
Those detainees are among 7,000 Daesh suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom the US military said it would transfer to Iraq after Syrian government forces recaptured Kurdish-held territory.
They include Syrians, Iraqis and Europeans, among other nationalities, according to several Iraqi security sources.
In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery.
Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of Daesh in the country in 2017, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) ultimately beat back the group in Syria two years later.
The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected extremists and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.
Last month, the United States said the purpose of its alliance with Kurdish forces in Syria had largely expired, as Damascus pressed an offensive to take back territory long held by the SDF.
In Iraq, where many prisons are packed with Daesh suspects, courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life terms to people convicted of terrorism offenses, including many foreign fighters.
Iraq’s judiciary said its investigation procedures “will comply with national laws and international standards.”
