Syria dialogue underway in Kazakhstan

Syrian peace talks brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran and seeking to bolster a shaky cease-fire in place since last month opened on Monday in Kazakhstan, marking the first face-to-face meeting between the Damascus government and rebel factions fighting to overthrow it.

The gathering in Astana, the Kazakh capital, is also the start of a new effort to end six years of carnage that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced half of Syria's population and sent millions of refugees to neighboring countries and Europe.

The UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is participating in the talks, which if successful, are expected to be followed by more political talks in February in Geneva.

The new US administration is not directly involved, because of the "immediate demands of the transition", the US State Department said on Saturday, but Washington is represented by the US ambassador to Kazakhstan, George Krol, who attended Monday's opening session held at the luxury Rixos President Hotel in Astana.

Osama Abo Zayd, a rebel media representative, said before the start that the scope of the negotiations is limited to strengthening the cease-fire.

"There's no significance to negotiations if the people on whose behalf we are negotiating are being killed," he said, adding that there has been absolutely no discussion about elections.

Syria's war is estimated to have killed about 400,000 people since March 2011.

Ahead of the talks, delegates passed through the hotel's soaring atrium, where songbirds are kept to chirp in cages, on their way to the conference room.

Reflecting persisting tensions, Arab TV stations said the rebel delegates stalled, entering the room a few minutes late to register their displeasure at being seated at the same oval-shaped table as the Iranian delegation. The hotel was closed off to all but a handful of representatives of the media.

Russia, Turkish and Iranian delegates were all seated around the same table, along with de Mistura and the U.S. ambassador.

After a short opening ceremony during which Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov spoke, the meeting went into closed session. It wasn't immediately clear if there would be any direct talks between the rebels and Damascus representatives behind the closed doors.

At the top of the agenda is an effort to consolidate last month's cease-fire brokered by Turkey and Russia. The truce, which excludes extremist groups such as the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, has reduced overall violence but fighting and violations continue on multiple fronts.

(China Daily 01/24/2017 page12)