Germany’s top diplomat will host talks on Wednesday with his French counterpart, the UN’s Syria envoy and Syria’s main opposition leader, as concerns grow over the war-torn country’s faltering truce.
Discussions will focus on “how the conditions for a continuation of the peace talks in Geneva can be met, as well as how a reduction of violence and an improvement in the humanitarian situation in Syria can be achieved”, the German foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Berlin meeting comes in a week of whirlwind diplomacy seeking to salvage a ceasefire in Syria, with US Secretary of State John Kerry jetting into Geneva last Sunday for talks with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura.
The UN envoy was himself in Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday, before heading to Berlin to meet with host Frank-Walter Steinmeier, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Syrian opposition leader Riad Hijab.
A two-month-old ceasefire brokered by Washington and Moscow is hanging by a thread as fierce fighting has again erupted around Syria’s second city Aleppo.
The clashes have also threatened peace negotiations, which de Mistura had hoped could resume next month.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said Tuesday a faltering truce in Syria must be “brought back on track” as he held talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on ending a fresh upsurge in fighting.
As the talks kicked off in Moscow, fighting raged in Syria’s second city of Aleppo, with state media reporting that rebel fire on a hospital killed three women.
In televised remarks, de Mistura praised the two-month-old truce brokered by Moscow and Washington as a “remarkable achievement” and said the two global powers should help “all of us to make sure that this is brought back on track”.
Russia’s top diplomat for his part said that “there was no alternative to the political settlement of the Syrian crisis,” adding Moscow highly valued Mistura’s efforts to help negotiate an end to a conflict that has killed more than 270,000 people since 2011.
“I am looking forward to a fruitful discussion,” Lavrov added.
The talks in the Russian capital were a last-ditch bid to rescue peace negotiations that have been undermined by the fierce fighting around Aleppo.
The meeting comes after a day of diplomacy in Geneva, where US Secretary of State John Kerry added his weight to efforts to resuscitate the stuttering truce.

Source: AFP, 3 May 2016