Evacuations imminent in besieged Syrian city

Scores of trapped civilians awaited evacuation on Friday from rebel-held areas in the besieged Syrian city of Homs as Damascus finally confirmed it will join new peace talks next week.

The evacuations are part of a surprise deal struck by the United Nations with Damascus on Thursday after months of negotiations that also will ensure that desperately needed aid is delivered to the rebel enclave during a "humanitarian pause" in fighting.

The first consignment of food and medicine is due to reach the hundreds of civilians who have been under army blockade for more than 600 days by Saturday, said Homs governor Talal Barazi.

The supplies had been held in a UN warehouse in a government-held area mere kilometers from the rebel-held Old City as negotiations over relief access dragged on.

At least 1,200 children, women and elderly people are reportedly among the approximately 2,500 civilians who have been trapped by the siege, surviving on little but olives, observers said.

Barazi said that a joint team from the provincial government, the UN and the Red Crescent was in the Old City to oversee the evacuation but that it was running late because of logistical hitches.

"According to the UN, the number of people expected to leave today (Friday) is nearly 200. It will take us another two hours or more before the first civilians begin coming out," Barazi said.

"Tomorrow, the first consignment of food and other relief supplies will reach those in need in the Old City."

The rebel-held Old City and adjacent neighborhoods have come under near-daily shelling since the army imposed a blockade in June 2012 after recapturing most of Homs in a counteroffensive launched that February.

In the first year of an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule that erupted in March 2011, activists had dubbed Homs the capital of the revolution.

But the 2012 assault by the army confined the rebels to an enclave in the city center, which was further reduced last summer when pro-government forces recaptured the town of Qusayr, cutting off a rebel supply route to neighboring Lebanon.

The enclave's plight was on the agenda of long-awaited peace talks between the government and the opposition in Switzerland last month, but the talks broke up without a hoped-for agreement on access for relief supplies.

It was left to UN representatives in Damascus to thrash out the deal with Syrian officials, who had long insisted that they would allow civilians to leave but would not allow aid to be taken in.

Second round of talks

The Syrian government had left open whether it would even attend a second round of peace talks due to begin Monday.

But deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad finally confirmed Friday that Damascus would take part.

"It has been decided that the delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic will take part in the second round of negotiations in Geneva," state news agency SANA quoted him as saying.

"The Syrian delegation wishes to pursue the efforts it deployed during the first round in Geneva and insists that the discussions focus on all clauses in the Geneva I communique, beginning with the first clause," he said.

AFP-Reuters-AP

(China Daily 02/08/2014 page8)