The United Nations struggled to save Syrian peace talks as Damascus and its Russian allies seized territory in fierce fighting and rifts widened among embattled rebel factions.
The Syrian army said on Wednesday its forces had broken through rebel defenses to reach two Shi’ite villages in Aleppo province which had been besieged for three years. Rebels said the breakthrough came after hundreds of bombing raids by Russian warplanes.
Aleppo factions, reeling from an “unprecedented” onslaught, issued an ultimatum to the opposition delegation late on Tuesday at the so far still-born Geneva talks late on Tuesday, a source close to the talks said.
They threatened to bring down the peace negotiations within three days unless the offensive by government and Russian forces ended.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura announced the formal start two days ago of the Geneva negotiations, the first attempt in two years to negotiate an end to a war that has killed 250,000 people, driven a huge wave of refugees and empowered Islamic State.
But talks have not even begun, and pessimism over their chances has grown.
“It seems the first phase of preparations (for talks) will take a much longer time than expected,” government delegation chief Bashar al-Ja’afari told Reuters in an interview in Geneva on Wednesday.
“The official discussions did not take off yet unfortunately. We are still discussing how to proceed.”
Ja’afari said the government was still unclear on who it would be negotiating with from the fragmented opposition side.
“I couldn’t tell you much about what’s going on because we are waiting for Godot, and Godot hasn’t come yet,” he said, referring to Samuel Beckett’s never-resolved play “Waiting for Godot”.
De Mistura said on Tuesday the process could collapse but it was essential to get it going.
“If there is a failure this time after we tried twice at conferences in Geneva, for Syria there will be no more hope. We must absolutely try to ensure that there is no failure,” he told Swiss television RTS.
The opposition’s chief coordinator Riad Hijab, who diplomats say is a unifying figure for the disparate rebel side, arrived in Geneva and was joined by de Mistura for talks at a hotel used by the opposition.
NO END TO RUSSIAN STRIKES:
The Levant Front rebel group said the breaking of the sieges of the Aleppo villages of Nubul and Zahraa came only after “more than 500 raids by Russian airplanes”.
One commander said opposition-held areas of the divided city were at risk of being encircled entirely by the government and allied militia, and appealed to foreign states that back the rebels to send more weapons.
“How can you accept to enter negotiations when you have unprecedented military pressure? The Russians and regime want to push the opposition out of Geneva so the opposition bears the responsibility for the failure,” said a senior Western diplomat.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country had no intention of ending its campaign.
“Russian strikes will not cease until we really defeat terrorist organizations like (The al Qaeda-linked) Jabhat al-Nusra. And I don’t see why these air strikes should be stopped,” he said at a news conference in Oman’s capital Muscat.
Diplomats and opposition members said they were taken by surprise when de Mistura called for immediate efforts to begin ceasefire negotiations despite there being no official talks or goodwill measures from the Syrian government.
