Syria peace meet likely in January

UNITED NATIONS: A meeting of UN, US and Russian envoys today is expected to agree that a Syria peace conference should be held in January, diplomats said.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon is to announce the date shortly after the meeting in Geneva, the envoys said. The conference on the worsening 32-month-old war has been repeatedly delayed amid wrangling over who should represent the Syrian opposition and government and whether countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia should take part. UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, Russian deputy foreign ministers Mikhail Bogdanov and Gennady Gatilov and US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman are to hold the Geneva talks today.
“They have patched over enough of the differences that the conference will be held, but it will miss Ban’s aim of December. It is now set for early January,” one UN diplomat said on condition of anonymity.  “It may slip into January but it will be announced,” added a second UN diplomat.
Diplomats from all the governments involved in preparations have warned that events in Syria could still upset the planned conference.
Following past postponements, the UN has avoided expressing any optimism about the chances of calling a conference this time.
“The point of the meeting on Monday is to take stock of where we stand. We’ll see at that point what we can say about arrangements,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters on Friday. Russia and the United States have been pressing since May for a followup to a Geneva meeting in June 2012, when the major powers agreed a declaration calling for a transitional government in Syria.
Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s key ally, has been pressing the government to cooperate on the conference. The United States, Britain and France have been working on the fractured Syrian opposition.
The followup, widely named Geneva II, would concentrate on how the transition can be established.
The Syrian National Coalition has agreed to go to a peace conference. It said that a delegation has gone to Geneva for talks with Brahimi ahead of today’s meeting.
But its authority is threatened by Islamic and other militant groups and a coalition demand that Assad stand down is one reason Geneva II is unlikely to halt a war which the UN says has left well over 100,000 dead.
The Syrian government, in turn, has insisted that Assad’s future cannot be discussed. “There are still doubts over whether Assad will send a delegation to Geneva that can take decisions,” commented a UN diplomat. 
Brahimi and the United States and Russia also face obstacles over how to get Iran, an Assad backer, and Saudi Arabia, a major supporter of the opposition, involved.
Fierce fighting to the east of Damascus has killed more than 160 people in the past two days as Syrian rebels struggle to break a months-long blockade by forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad, activists said yesterday.
It began on Friday when rebel units attacked a string of military checkpoints encircling the opposition-held suburbs in an area known as Eastern Ghouta, which has been under siege for more than six months.
Local and international aid workers say Assad’s forces appeared to be trying to starve out residents — indiscriminately affecting civilians as much as rebel fighters.
The blockade has cut off rebels’ weapons supplies and helped turn the tide of fighting around the capital in Assad’s favour.
AFP