UN hopes Geneva 2 relieves Syrian plight

The United Nations hopes that talks between the warring sides in Syria will lead to local cease-fires that will allow vital food and medicine to reach millions of civilians, the UN humanitarian chief said on Thursday.

The day after an international conference on Syria, Valerie Amos said that mediator Lakhdar Brahimi would press the government and opposition on these humanitarian issues at meetings that were due to start later in the day.

The two sides, meeting for the first time, vented their mutual hostility on Wednesday, but Brahimi said the enemies may be ready to discuss prisoner swaps, local cease-fires and humanitarian aid.

"I have discussed this with Mr Brahimi, and he'll continue to push this. Because political negotiations can take a very long time. And as we saw yesterday, there are big differences between the parties," Amos said in an interview in Montreux, Switzerland.

"But if we are able to get a major push on getting into these communities, it would make a significant difference."

She said it was crucial to gain access to about 250,000 people trapped in besieged communities, many of them in Aleppo, Homs and near Damascus, who have been out of reach for many months. Some say they have been reduced to eating grass in order to avoid starvation.

Another 2.5 million people are in "hard-to-reach" areas, having received UN relief supplies just once or so, Amos said.

"The key issue for us is that control of communities shifts all the time. We want to really take advantage when there is a sense we can move very quickly to try to do that," she said, adding that she had met with an opposition delegate in Montreux.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged Syria's warring sides on Wednesday to set a basic framework to shape their peace talks.

"Instead of miring themselves in arguments and debates at the beginning on issues where their positions are quite far apart, they should reach an agreement on the principles and framework of negotiation," Wang told reporters after attending the Geneva 2 conference on Syria.

"An early harvest should be achieved on issues where the two sides are not far apart," such as local cease-fires, prisoner releases and humanitarian cooperation, he said.

The Chinese foreign minister said the UN-led peace talks needed to keep going forward by "tackling the easiest issues first and moving onto more difficult ones later".

"It is not easy for the parties in Syria to sit down at the negotiation table," Wang said, adding the hard-won opportunity should be cherished and negotiations must be pursued relentlessly.

"The negotiations will be painstaking and tortuous for sure. That is why confidence, patience and perseverance are essential," he said, adding that compromise, mutual accommodation and meeting each other halfway were important for the talks to move forward.

"I believe that, as long as the negotiations keep going without disruption, then as the dialogue deepens and trust grows between the two sides, all issues should and can be resolved," he said. China will continue to make efforts to push the talks forward until a solution acceptable to both parties is found, he added.

Amos, who submitted a confidential written brief to the UN Security Council on Jan 17, said that there had been little improvement since world powers called unanimously in October for both sides to grant greater access to aid workers and convoys.

"I indicated to the Security Council, as I have done before, that we have made some modest progress on administrative hurdles that we have faced, things like visas for staff and arrangements in place in terms of clearance" for convoys, Amos said.

"But on the really big-ticket items, like protection of civilians, demilitarization of schools and hospitals, access to besieged and hard-to-reach communities, there has been little or no progress at all," she said.

A food-aid delivery reached Yarmouk, a suburb of Damascus besieged by government forces, on Jan. 18, badly needed after months of isolation but not enough for thousands of trapped civilians who are malnourished and without medicine.

Reuters-Xinhua

A Jordanian girl shouts slogans against the Geneva 2 peace conference held in Switzerland during a demonstration organized by Jordanian Al-Tahrir party, in front the Syrian embassy in Amman on Wednesday. Muhammad Hamed / Reuters

(China Daily 01/24/2014 page11)