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Syrian peace talks limp on to next week with opposition absent

22 April 2016 21:03 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The U.N. special envoy for Syria has vowed to take fragile peace talks into next week despite a walkout by the main armed opposition, a breakdown in a truce and signs that both sides are gearing up to escalate the five-year-old civil war, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The opposition declared a "pause" in the talks this week because of a surge in fighting and too little movement from the government side on freeing detainees or allowing in aid. Nearly all of its delegation left Geneva.

But U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said he had no plans to call off the negotiations, the first in five years of conflict to include some rebel factions. He said a ministerial meeting of world powers was urgently needed to get the talks back on track.

"Bottom line, I plan to continue the proximity talks, but at the formal level and at the technical level until next week, probably Wednesday as originally planned," he said.

A fragile ceasefire in place since February was still in effect because none of the sides had renounced it, he said, but it was "in great trouble if we don't act quickly."

The talks at U.N. headquarters in Geneva aim to halt a conflict that has allowed for the rise of the Islamic State group, sucked in regional and major powers and created the world's worst refugee crisis.

De Mistura now says 400,000 people have been killed in the war, far higher than the previous U.N. toll, usually given as 250,000. He said he had no proof of the higher figure but the estimate of 250,000 was two years old and no longer valid.

The war was tilted in President Bashar al-Assad's favor late last year by Russia's intervention.