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Activists have called for the Syrian Government to engage in serious talks on political transition and for the United Nations to strengthen the fragile ceasefire as violence continues to engulf the country.
Key points:
- UN mediator suggests recent attacks were a deliberate attempt to wreck the peace talks
- Warplanes bombed rebel-held areas over the weekend, including towns around Damascus
- Activists maintain that the Syrian regime is not serious about peace talks
UN mediator Staffan de Mistura said a militant attack in Homs on Saturday was a deliberate attempt to wreck the Geneva peace talks, while the warring sides traded blame and appeared no closer to actual negotiations.
"Our hopes are not high given the incidents on the ground and the continuous violations by the regime forces and its backers of the ceasefire," Mutasem Alysoufi of The Day After Syria campaign that supports democratic transition said.
Warplanes bombed rebel-held areas around several Syrian cities on Sunday including in the al-Waer district of Homs, and in towns around Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
One person was killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma and three in al-Waer, the Observatory said, while shells and rockets were launched at insurgent districts in Deraa and Idlib provinces.
Rebels fired several shells at a suburb of government-held Aleppo.
Mr Alysoufi said that under Security Council resolution 2254, Mr Mistura was meant to develop a plan to monitor the ceasefire and sanction those who violated it.
"So this is a duty of the UN," he said.
Mr Alysoufi added that he did not believe the Government delegation, led by Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari, wanted to engage in serious political talks.
"They are gaining more time and continuing their military strategy on the ground," he said.
Mr Mistura handed a working paper on procedural issues to delegations on Friday, but there appears little prospect of moving to the key political issues — a new constitution, UN-supervised elections and accountable governance.
He met on Sunday with two opposition groups that curry favour with Russia, President Bashar al Assad's main backer.
The UN envoy indicated to the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), which is leading the main opposition delegation, that he would like to unify the disparate groups to facilitate face-to-face talks with the Government to end the nearly six-year-old conflict.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, syrian-arab-republic
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