Thursday 25 / April / 2024
Berlin: The United Nations hopes to convene a new round of intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva in August, the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Friday.
"We are determined to actually look for a proper date in August for relaunching the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva," de Mistura told reporters before a meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The envoy said US Secretary Of State John Kerry and Russian officials had agreed to take some "concrete steps" in addressing the situation in Syria, which could be helpful.
He said Turkish officials also assured him during a meeting in Ankara this week that they remained committed to working toward peace in Syria despite a failed coup attempt that has rocked Turkey.
"The next three weeks are going to be extremely important to give a chance for not only intra-Syrian talks, but also for some possibility of reducing violence," he said.
De Mistura said progress in US-Russian talks on Syria would get the next round of intra-Syrian talks off to a good start and could help the warring parties take "credible, real steps in the direction of political transition."
He said the situation in Aleppo was critical, with about 300,000 people facing the threat of another siege.
Steinmeier also called for a return to political discussion among the warring parties in Syria. Without progress on the political front, a fragile ceasefire would be broken again and again, he said.
Meanwile, an American man who died fighting alongside Syrian Kurdish fighters to oust IS from the northern Syrian city of Manbij has been named as Levi Jonathan Shirley.
Shirley, who adopted the Kurdish name of Agir Servan, was killed on July 14, the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) said in a statement posted on its website on Thursday.
The YPG is part of a US-backed alliance of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters called the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), which launched an offensive in May to seize the last territory held by IS insurgents on Syria's frontier with Turkey.
The YPG has attracted foreign fighters from around the world, including Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia and Turkey. A YPG official said in February that seven Westerners had died fighting with the group.
In May, the YPG said a Portuguese national had died, also fighting in Manbij.
The SDF has largely avoided fighting forces allied to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and has focused on battling the hardline IS militants in Syria's five-year-old conflict.
