VIENNA: The UN special envoy for Syria said that peace talks due to resume in Vienna on Thursday are taking place “at a very, very critical moment.”
“Definitely I am optimistic because it is the only way to be at such moments,” Staffan de Mistura said on Wednesday. “It is a very, very critical moment.”
He said a “full delegation of the opposition and a full delegation of the government” would be in the Austrian capital for the two days of talks.
France’s foreign minister said meanwhile in Paris that the Vienna talks are the “last hope” for reaching a political solution to the seven-year war.
“There is no prospect of a political solution today except, and it’s the last hope, the meeting that opens tomorrow in Vienna led by the United Nations and with all the stakeholders present,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
Speaking in parliament, Le Drian also highlighted a “considerable worsening of the humanitarian situation” in Afrin, where Turkish forces are carrying out an offensive against a Kurdish militia, as well as in Idlib and in Eastern Ghouta.
The talks hosted by de Mistura in Vienna come after eight previous rounds in Geneva that failed to get the warring parties even to talk to each other.
The discussions have repeatedly stumbled over the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Representatives from his government have refused to meet the opposition directly until it drops demands that he leave office.
The talks come ahead of a peace conference in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi backed by Russia, Iran and Turkey on January 29-30.
Moscow initially hoped to convene peace talks in Sochi last November but those efforts collapsed following a lack of agreement among co-sponsors.
Syria’s main opposition group has said it would need “full and clear information” before agreeing to take part, but government representatives have said they will attend.
Syria’s complex, multi-sided seven-year war has claimed more than 340,000 lives, forced millions to flee their homes and left Syria in ruins.
Bolstered by Russia’s intervention in 2015, Damascus has regained the upper hand militarily, retaking large swathes of rebel-held territory.
Russian-backed Syrian forces have also dealt severe blows to the Daesh group, whose self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria has largely collapsed.
In December the first Russian troops began returning home after President Vladimir Putin ordered a pullout, saying their mission had been largely completed.
De Mistura has called on Putin to push the Assad regime to hold new elections, saying a military victory alone was not enough to “win the peace.”
UN Syria envoy says Vienna talks at ‘very critical moment’
UN Syria envoy says Vienna talks at ‘very critical moment’
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
