Syria: Peace talks have made little progress, says Brahimi

Geneva: UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi on Tuesday said that little progress has been achieved since the start of the second round of Syria peace talks resuming a day earlier. After today’s meetings, adjourned at noon after the envoy met with the two sides “simultaneously” this morning, Brahimi told a press conference that the negotiations were as “laborious” as the first round did, Xinhua reported. [caption id=“attachment_1385213” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Lakhdar Brahimi. Agencies.[/caption] “We are not making much progress,” he said, appealing to speed up actions to make this process a reality and help lift Syria out of the mire.“We will do our very best to make this process take off.” The mediator stressed that to push forward the process requires both the cooperation from the two warring sides and the supports from outside. On the UN-Russia-US meeting scheduled to be held Friday, Brahimi said it is a “consultative” and “routine” meeting between himself, Russia and the US, the two initiating sides for the Geneva II conference on Syria. But he did not reveal the agenda or details of the upcoming trilateral meeting. Moreover, the mediator hailed the current situation of Homs as a “success” though it took months to achieve it, and then he called for attention to other besieged areas in the unchanged dire situation in the war-torn country. IANS