Syrian government says ready for further peace talks

Beirut: Syria's government said on Sunday it was ready for further peace talks with the opposition and that it was intent on a political solution to the five-year conflict.
"Syria...is ready to continue the Syrian-Syrian dialogue without any preconditions...and without foreign interference, with the support of the United Nations," state news agency SANA quoted an official in the foreign ministry as saying.
The UN hopes to convene a new round of intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva in August, its Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said this week.
Previous rounds of talks this year broke down as fighting escalated, particularly around Aleppo, where government forces recently cut off the only road into rebel-held areas of the divided northern city.
The United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in the conflict, are meanwhile to discuss an American proposal for closer military cooperation and intelligence sharing on Syria to combat extremist groups.
Secretary of State John Kerry said this month that Washington and Damascus ally Moscow had reached a common understanding on the steps needed to get Syria's peace process back on track.
Meanwhile, Syrian government air strikes overnight put four hospitals in Aleppo province out of action, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.
They included three hospitals in Aleppo city, which is divided between government and rebel control, and one in Aleppo's western countryside, the Observatory said.
It did not immediately report casualties.
The strikes hit near the hospitals, it said.
Many hospitals have been hit or damaged during the five-year conflict.
In April, an air strike on a hospital in rebel-held Aleppo killed dozens of people.
Rebel rockets hit a hospital on the government side of the city a few days later.
Several people were killed when a mortar bomb hit a restaurant in the government-controlled ancient quarter of the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday, a monitor and a witness said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens were also wounded in the attack.
A witness told Reuters there were at least six dead in the restaurant in the Bab Touma district of Damascus.
Mortar attacks on government-controlled areas of Damascus from rebel-held areas just outside it are relatively rare.