Russia seeks talks on Syrian peace
BEIRUT – The search for a negotiated settlement to the Syrian civil war is gaining steam, as President Bashar Assad’s forces feel increasingly squeezed on the battlefield and Islamic extremist groups proliferate across the region.
Russia, Assad’s chief international ally, is trying to convene peace talks in Moscow between Syrian government representatives and the mainstream opposition on how to move toward a political transition. Its diplomats have been shuttling between various sides of the conflict to try to arrange talks without preconditions.
Elsewhere, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is attempting to decrease the level of carnage in Syria through a plan that calls for “freezing the conflict” in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo as a building block for a wider solution to the war.
Associated Press
