Saturday, January 30, 2016

Main Syrian opposition team heads to Geneva as peace talks open

A delegation from Syria's main opposition group flew to Geneva today to assess whether to join Damascus government officials in United Nations-brokered peace talks, an opposition representative said. The 17-strong team included the head of the Saudi-backed Higher Negotiation Committee (HNC), which includes political and militant opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's five-year civil war. The HNC has said it wants to discuss humanitarian issues including a stop to Russian and Syrian government bombing before engaging in the peace talks that started on Friday in Geneva. Russian air strikes on Syria have killed nearly 1,400 civilians since Moscow started its aerial campaign nearly four months ago, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said on Saturday. "We are going to Geneva to put to the test the seriousness of the international community in its promises to the Syrian people and to also test the seriousness of the regime in implementing its humanitarian obligations," Riyad Naasan Agha said. "We want to show the world our seriousness in moving towards negotiations to find a political solution," he told Reuters. French Foreign...

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