France Slams Assad Regime Over No-show For Syria Peace Talks In Geneva: Russian Airstrikes Continue Killings
05 December 2017EsinIslam And
Agencies
France accused the Assad regime on Wednesday of obstructing U.N.-led peace
talks with its refusal to return to Geneva and called on Russia not to shirk
its responsibilities to get the regime to the negotiating table.
Talks on ending the war in Syria resumed on Wednesday, but with no sign of the
regime negotiators returning to the table in Geneva.
The process began last week. But after a few days with little apparent
progress, the U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said the Assad regime
delegation led by Bashar al-Jaafari was returning to Damascus to "consult and
refresh."
"France condemns the absence of the delegation of the regime and its refusal
to engage in good faith in the negotiations to achieve a political solution,"
French foreign ministry deputy spokesman Alexandre Georgini told reporters.
"This refusal highlights the obstruction strategy of the political process
carried out by the Damascus regime, which is responsible for the absence of
progress in the negotiations," he added.
He said Russia, as one of the Assad's main backers, needed to assume its
responsibilities so that the regime finally entered the negotiations.
De Mistura had said he expected talks to resume "around Tuesday" Dec. 5, but
Jaafari said before leaving that he might not come back because the opposition
had stated that Assad could not play a role in a future interim government.
During last week's sessions, de Mistura shuttled between the representatives
of the two warring sides, who did not meet face-to-face. He had planned to
continue the round until Dec. 15.
Over 20 civilians killed in Russian airstrikes in eastern Syria, monitor
says
Russian airstrikes killed 21 civilians early Wednesday in a village held by
the Daesh terror group near the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, a monitor
said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombing raids hit the village
of Al-Jerzi on the eastern bank of the river, which cuts across Deir el-Zour
province.
"Twenty-one civilians were killed, including nine children, very early
Wednesday in Russian air strikes targeting residential buildings in Al-Jerzi,"
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of sources inside Syria and says
it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight
patterns and munitions used.
It says Daesh, which used to control swathes of Deir el-Zour province, has
been ousted from all but eight percent of the oil-rich region.
The terrorists have lost vast swathes of it to separate offensives by
Russian-backed Syrian troops and an alliance known as the Syrian Democratic
Forces, which is dominated by the PKK terrorist group's Syrian offshoot the
Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing People's Protection Forces (YPG).
The SDF has long been backed by the U.S.-led coalition bombing of Daesh in
Iraq and Syria, but its Kurdish component recently said it had also received
support from Moscow.
Russian warplanes had given air cover to YPG as they fought against terrorists
in Deir el-Zour, according to the YPG and Moscow's defense ministry.
Russia first launched bombing raids in 2015 in support of the Assad regime's
beleaguered forces.
Those strikes have helped Assad regain control over much of war-ravaged Syria.
More than 340,000 people have been killed since the conflict broke out with
protests against Assad's rule in March 2011 which were met with a brutal
crackdown.
Daesh has also lost most of the territory it held in neighboring Iraq.
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