SYRIA: FIRST FACE-TO-FACE TALKS OFF TO A 'GOOD' START, UN-ARAB LEAGUE ENVOY SAYS

From: UNNews <UNNews@un.org>
Date: 25 Jan 2014 16:00:01 -0500
Subject: SYRIA: FIRST FACE-TO-FACE TALKS OFF TO A 'GOOD' START,
UN-ARAB LEAGUE ENVOY SAYS
To: news11@ny-mail-p-lb-028.ptc.un.org

SYRIA: FIRST FACE-TO-FACE TALKS OFF TO A 'GOOD' START, UN-ARAB LEAGUE
ENVOY SAYSNew York, Jan 25 2014 4:00PMRepresentatives of the Syrian
Government and opposition groups today discussed humanitarian issues
and tomorrow will focus on release of prisoners and kidnapped victims,
the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League
of Arab States today said following the opposing sides' first ever
meeting at a negotiating table.

"We haven't achieved much, but we are continuing," Lakhdar Brahimi <
"http://webtv.un.org/watch/lakhdar-brahimi-joint-special-representative-for-syria-press-conference-geneva-25-january-2014/3105564768001/">told
reporters at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

"The situation is extremely complex, it is a very difficult situation,
and we are moving not in steps but even in half-steps," the joint
envoy noted after two sessions with both groups.

He said getting an aid convoy into the city of Homs topped the agenda
of today's afternoon meeting which lasted roughly two hours.

"We hope that ultimately that some convoy of aid, goods, both food and
non-food items, and some medical supplies will be allowed to go into
the old city," Mr. Brahimi told reporters at the Palais des Nations in
Geneva.

The governor of Homs, who has been speaking to the UN team in
Damascus, is expected to meet with his security advisor tomorrow about
the convoy, the joint envoy added, "if it's allowed tomorrow, maybe it
will go in on Monday".

Well over 100,000 people have been killed and nearly 9 million others
driven from their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011
between the Government and various groups seeking the ouster of
President Bashar al-Assad.

More than 9.3 million people within the country need humanitarian aid,
the UN has said, with over 2.5 million of them living in areas where
access is seriously constrained or non-existent, such as Homs.

"If we achieve success on Homs, we hope that this would be the
beginning for us to discuss other issues," he told the journalists.

Today was the first time that both sides met in the same room where
"one delegation is on the left, one is on the right, and they face one
another".

No direct words have been exchanged but the two sides talk through Mr.
Brahimi with one another.

"This is what happens in civilised discussions," he said, where sides
address each other through a chairperson. "I think it's a good
beginning."

The goal of the conference is to achieve a political solution to the
three-year-long conflict through a comprehensive agreement between the
two sides for the full implementation of the Geneva communiqué,
adopted after the first international meeting on the issue on 30 June
2012, and since endorsed by the UN Security Council.

The communiqué lays out key steps in a process to end the violence.
Among others, it calls for the establishment of a transitional
governing body, with full executive powers and made up by members of
the present Government and the opposition and other groups, as part of
agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political
transition.

Mr. Brahimi said he expects to resume talks with both sides again
tomorrow morning to discuss "prisoners and people that have been
kidnapped and see if something can be done to secure the freedom of
not all but at least some people who have been deprived of their
freedom".
Jan 25 2014 4:00PM
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