Get Syria back to peace talks, U.N. says

DAMASCUS, Syria - The United Nations’ secretary-general pressed the U.S. and Russia to help ensure that peace talks aimed at ending Syria’s civil war can soon resume, while Russia’s foreign minister said Saturday that it was “very difficult” to push Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government to make concessions.

A week of peace talks ended in Geneva on Friday with no concrete progress and no immediate commitment from Assad’s envoys to return Feb. 10 for more meetings with the Western-backed opposition as suggested by mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at a conference of global security officials in Munich that he urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting on the sidelines “to use their influence to ensure the talks proceed as scheduled on Feb. 10.”

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said his delegation was “ready” and waiting for an invitation to return to Switzerland, in a statement carried on state media.

An agreement to allow aid convoys into rebel-held parts of the central Syrian city of Homs has stalled, with the government and opposition accusing each other of holding up the aid delivery into the city, which has been under siege for nearly two years.

Lavrov insisted that “Russia can do nothing alone” and urged the U.S. and others to exert their influence on the Syrian opposition.

Lavrov said the humanitarian situation in Syria was “outrageous” but insisted “we’ve got to be realistic.”

Kerry raised concern over the humanitarian situation when he met with Lavrov on Friday night.

He also insisted anew that the creation by mutual consent of a transitional governing body be a primary focus in the next round of talks, according to a senior State Department official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the private meeting by name.

The meeting focused on the need for the opposition to expand its delegation, the official said. The opposition delegation does not control armed groups inside Syria, including al-Qaida-backed militants who say they are not bound by agreements reached in the talks.

Lavrov welcomed “the modest but important results” of the talks, adding that he hoped they would be “deepened and expanded” in the next round.

“The parties may still be fighting, but now they are also talking - this is the only hope for a political solution,” Ban said.

Meanwhile, Syrian military helicopters dropped barrels packed with explosivesin the government’s latest air raids on rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo on Saturday, killing at least 23 people including a family trapped in a burning car, activists said.

The raids with barrel bombs, as the crude weapons are known, have flattened residential buildings, forcing defenders to flee andallowing government troops to advance. The bombing in Aleppo comes as Syrian government forces try to retake the city, which has been divided into government- andopposition-held areas since mid-2012.

Information for this article was contributed by Gier Moulson, David Rising and Diaa Hadid of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 02/02/2014

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