Tag Archives: United Nations

United States to press Russia on future of Syria’s Assad

MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to press President Vladimir Putin on how Russia sees a future political transition in Syria and the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

With a fragile truce in place in Syria and warring sides attending peace talks in Geneva, Kerry wants to “get down to brass tacks” on the question of Assad’s future, a State Department official said.

While the United States want Assad to step aside, Russia says only the Syrian people can decide his fate at the ballot box and has bristled at any talk of regime change.

Kerry is holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, in a meeting arranged after the Russian leader’s surprise announcement on March 14 that he was partially withdrawing his forces from Syria.

“The Secretary would like to now really hear where President Putin is in his thinking … on a political transition” in Syria, the official said as Kerry arrived in Moscow.

“Obviously what we are looking for, and what we have been looking for, is how we are going to transition Syria away from Assad’s leadership,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After five years of conflict that has killed over 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis, Washington and Moscow reached a deal three weeks ago for a cessation of hostilities and delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

The State Department official said meetings with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would evaluate the status of the ceasefire and try to “get on the same page” about ending violations and increasing humanitarian assistance.

UNILATERAL THREAT

Russia this week threatened to act unilaterally against those who violate the ceasefire unless it reached a deal with the United States on ways to detect and prevent truce breaches.

The Syrian opposition has accused government forces of renewing sieges and stepping up a campaign of barrel-bombing across the country.

In Geneva, where warring sides are a week into talks on ending the conflict, government officials have rejected any discussion on the fate of Assad, who opposition leaders say must go as part of any transition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Syria peace talks were always going to be long and difficult, and it was too early to talk about patience running out on any side.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday he hoped the U.S-Russia meeting would give an impetus to the peace talks where the divisive issue of a political transition is stalling progress.

But the State Department official played down expectations that the meeting would have an immediate impact on the talks, which adjourn on Thursday with the next round expected in early April.

A Syrian activist at the talks, Jihad Makdissi, said de Mistura was planning to issue a paper on a “potential common vision”.

The Syrian government delegation said the U.N. envoy had handed them a document which they would study on their return to Damascus. No details of either paper were disclosed.

However, the United Nations said the Syrian government had given verbal assurances that aid convoys can go into three or four areas that its forces are besieging.

U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the United Nations had been allowed to enter eight or nine of the 11 areas it had asked to supply with aid, including three or four besieged areas.

But it had not been allowed to go into the town of Daraya, where the World Food Programme has said some people have been reduced to eating grass.

PALMYRA OFFENSIVE

On the battlefield, Syrian government forces and their allies were reported to have pushed forward against Islamic State fighters to reach the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday.

State news agency SANA quoted a military source who said the army and allied militia advanced in the hills outside Palmyra and toward a road junction “after eliminating the last terrorist Daesh groups there”, referring to Islamic State fighters. Islamic State is not covered by the truce agreement.

The Syrian army is trying to recapture Palmyra, which Islamic State seized in May, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Clashes raged around Palmyra after government forces took control of most of a nearby hill with air cover from Syrian and Russian warplanes, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Russia has withdrawn around half of its air force in Syria, according to Reuters calculations based on state TV footage, some of which was not broadcast.

But Moscow has maintained a group of Su-24 bombers at its Latakia air base and deployed a number of advanced attack helicopters, meaning it is able to continue a reduced number of air strikes in the country.

Operating from Russia’s Shayrat air base southeast of Homs, the helicopter force will be used to secure territory gains around Aleppo and support the Syrian army offensive against Islamic State in Palmyra, Western officials said.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Jack Stubbs, John Davison, Dominic Evans, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership)

UNHCR takes swipe at EU-Turkey migrant deal

GENEVA/LESBOS (Reuters) – The United Nations refugee agency dealt a blow to EU efforts to stem the biggest humanitarian crisis in generations on Tuesday, saying it would no longer assist in the transfer of migrants and refugees arriving in Greece to “detention centers”.

The European Union reached a deal with Turkey just four days ago aimed at halting the flow of migrants across the sea to Greece, but the UNHCR said the deal was being prematurely implemented without the required safeguards in place.

It said migrants were being held against their will at reception facilities in Greece, and it would not transport people there from the beaches. It will continue to provide other services including counseling to refugees, it said.

The accord crafted by EU leaders and Turkey specifically mentions the UNHCR’s involvement, although UN officials in Geneva said they were not consulted on that.

The deal, which took effect on Sunday, is aimed at putting new arrivals in Greece who seek asylum on a fast-track for processing. But it also means those migrants and refugees are kept in detention until their claims are assessed.

“Under the new provisions, these so-called hotspots have now become detention centers,” said the UNHCR’s Melissa Fleming.

“Accordingly, and in line with UNHCR policy of opposing mandatory detention, we have suspended some of our activities at all closed centers on the island.”

Those considered ineligible for asylum are to be sent back to Turkey from April 4. For every Syrian returned, another still in Turkey will be resettled directly in Europe, effectively penalizing those who have in many cases spent their life savings trying to flee conflict.

At least two EU officials said they hoped this shock therapy might work in ebbing the flow of migrants and refugees into Europe. One EU official said “ugly images” of forced detentions and deportations were something the EU would have to accept if it was to regain control of its own borders.

“Ethically we might have doubts. But legally we have no doubts,” another EU official said. Both made the remarks before the UNHCR said it was partially withdrawing its support.

DETENTION CENTERS

Until Sunday, arrivals to Lesbos had been free to leave the Moria migrant camp and head for ferries to the Greek mainland from where they would mostly head north via the Balkans in a bid to reach western Europe, particularly Germany.

Now, they are meant to be held in Moria or one of four other centers set up on the Aegean islands of Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos, pending the outcome of their asylum applications.

As of Sunday, just two buses were available to transport the arrivals to Moria, one belonging to the coast guard and one to the police, a senior port police official said.

Early on Tuesday, 129 refugees and migrants who had been rescued at sea by a coast guard patrol boat and taken to the port waited for some 40 minutes for the buses to arrive.

They sat on the dock shivering, men dressed in thin trousers and jackets and women wrapped up with scarves. Many were barefoot and soaked to their knees.

One, a young man named Zalmai, said he had left Afghanistan with his five-member family.

“(There are) a lot of problems in our country. We’re coming for a better life,” he said, putting on a jumper given to him by volunteers and wrapping a thick grey blanket around his waist.

Using his finger to imitate a knife across his throat, he said: “I’m not going back to Turkey, to Afghanistan. Please, I’ll stay here.”

CHILDREN NEED PROTECTION, UN SAYS

More than 147,000 people, many fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Asia, have arrived in Greece by sea this year, 59 percent of them women and children, according to UNHCR.

On Monday, Turkish monitors arrived on Lesbos to help put the deal into practice. On Tuesday, the Czech Republic offered 10 asylum experts and 30 police officers plus humanitarian aid to Greece, its state secretary for EU affairs said.

Under a timetable agreed with the EU last week, a task force of 4,000 people from asylum case workers and experts to arbitrators, interpreters and security staff should be in place by March 28. Of those, 2,300 should be deployed by other EU states.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. children’s fund UNICEF told a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday the fund was concerned about this new agreement and the implications for children.

“We see no mention of children despite the fact that children make up 40 percent of those currently stranded in Greece,” she said, adding 19,000 children are stranded in Greece and about 10 percent are unaccompanied.

(Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Syrian government refuses to discuss Assad’s future

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The fate of President Bashar al-Assad will play no part in talks to end the Syrian war, the head of the government’s delegation said, leading the U.N. peace envoy to warn that lack of progress on the issue could threaten a fragile cessation of hostilities.

Damascus delegate Bashar Ja’afari said Assad’s future had “nothing to do” with the negotiations, which entered their second week on Monday, insisting that counter-terrorism efforts remained the priority for the government.

“The (terms of) reference of our talks do not give any indication whatsoever with regard to the issue of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said when asked about the willingness of the government delegation to engage in serious talks on political transition.

“This is something already excluded.”

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura – who describes Syria’s political transition as “the mother of all issues” – responded by saying the government delegation’s refusal to discuss it could lead to a deterioration of the situation on the ground.

“Everyone more or less agrees, the cessation of hostilities is still holding,” he said. “The same … more or less for the movement on humanitarian aid. But neither of them can be sustained if we don’t get progress on the political transition.”

The fragility of the three-week-old cessation, which was backed by the United States and Russia, was highlighted on Monday when Moscow said it had recorded six violations in the last 24 hours.

The Syrian opposition accused the government delegation of wasting time by refusing to discuss the future of Assad. “It is not possible to wait like this, while the regime delegation wastes time without achieving anything,” said Salim al-Muslat, spokesman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee.

DESERT CITY

Arguments over Assad’s fate were a major cause of the failure of previous U.N. peace efforts in 2012 and 2014 to end a civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and caused a refugee crisis.

The five-year-old conflict between the government and insurgents has also allowed Islamic State to take advantage of the chaos and take control of areas in the east of the country.

Fighters from the jihadist group – which is excluded from the ceasefire deal – killed 26 Syrian soldiers on Monday west of Palmyra, a monitoring group said, after days of advances by government forces backed by Syrian and Russian air cover.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the Syrian army would soon recapture Palmyra from Islamic State, which has held the desert city for nearly a year.

Palmyra has both symbolic and military value as the site of ancient Roman-era ruins – mostly destroyed by Islamic State – and because of its location on a highway linking mainly government-held western Syria to Islamic State’s eastern stronghold.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting took place about 4 km (2 miles) west of Palmyra.

It was not possible to independently verify the death toll. Syria’s state news agency SANA said the army and allied forces, backed by the Syrian air force, carried out “concentrated operations” against Islamic State around Palmyra and the Islamic State-held town of al-Qaryatayn, about 100 km further west.

After more than five months of air strikes in support of Assad, which turned the course of the civil war in the government’s favour, Putin announced the withdrawal last week of most Russian forces. But Russian planes have continued to support army operations near Palmyra, according to the Observatory and regional media.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Stephanie Nebehay and Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Pravin Char; editing by John Stonestreet)

Syria peace talks grind toward pivotal Assad question

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syrian government negotiators at Geneva peace talks are coming under unaccustomed pressure to discuss something far outside their comfort zone: the fate of President Bashar al-Assad. And they are doing their best to avoid it.

U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura describes Syria’s political transition as “the mother of all issues” and, emboldened by the Russian and U.S. muscle that brought the participants to the negotiating table, he refuses to drop the subject.

After a week of talks in Geneva, he praised the opposition for the depth of their ideas, but criticized the veteran diplomats on the government side for getting bogged down.

“The government is currently focusing very much on principles, which are necessary in any type of common ground on the transition,” he said. “But I hope next week, and I have been saying so to them, that we will get their opinion, their details on how they see the political transition taking place.”

Arguments over Assad’s fate were a major cause of the failure of previous U.N. peace efforts in 2012 and 2014 to end a civil war that has now lasted five years, killed more than 250,000 people and caused a refugee crisis.

The main opposition, along with the United States and other Western nations, has long insisted any peace deal must include his departure from power, while the Syrian government and Russia have said there is no such clause in the international agreements that underwrite the peace process.

The Syrian president looked more secure than ever at the start of the latest round of talks, riding high after a Russian-backed military campaign.

But Russia’s surprise withdrawal of most of its forces during the week signaled that Moscow expected its Syrian allies to take the Geneva talks seriously. And de Mistura appointed a Russian expert to sit in the negotiations with him and to advise on political issues.

Unlike previous rounds, the talks have run for a week without any hint of collapse, forcing the government delegation led by Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari to acknowledge de Mistura’s demands.

Ja’afari began by giving de Mistura a document entitled “Basic elements for a political solution”.

“Approving these principles will open a serious dialogue under Syrian leadership without foreign intervention and without preconditions,” Ja’afari said on Friday, in a brief statement after the longest session of the talks so far.

But officials and diplomats involved in the talks variously described the document as “very thin”, “bland” and “off the point”.

It listed familiar goals such as maintaining a secular state and Syria’s territorial integrity and the importance of fighting terrorism, according to sources who have read it. But it said nothing about a political transition.

FILIBUSTER

In sessions with de Mistura, Ja’afari has approached the negotiations as slowly as possible, reopening U.N. resolutions and going through them “by the letter”, said a source with knowledge of the process.

“Mr Ja’afari is still in a kind of delusion of trying to filibuster his way out of town, or to filibuster the opposition out of town,” said a western diplomat.

“He will spend every minute questioning the nature of the opposition, quibbling about the font in the agenda.”

By Friday, de Mistura said Ja’afari’s team needed to go faster and couldn’t avoid the substantive question forever.

“The fact that the government delegation would like to set different rules or play with the terms of this agreement is I think a non-starter,” said opposition delegate Basma Kodmani.

A diplomat involved in the peace process said Assad was not used to having to compromise, and that made Ja’afari’s negotiating position rigid.

“He has to have control. If he gives up 1 percent, he loses 100 percent. He’s designed like that,” the diplomat said.

In three meetings with each side during the week, de Mistura quizzed the negotiators about their ideas, and they were also able to put questions to their rivals through him, one participant said.

The U.N. mediation team spends the sessions “stripping the papers apart and delving deep into the subject and forcing them to do more homework and forcing them to give answers”, said a source with knowledge of the process.

The negotiators do not meet each other, but face de Mistura in a functional, windowless room with desks arranged in a square. There is space for eight or nine people around each side, but the conditions are slightly cramped, and afford no luxury beyond a plastic bottle of mineral water on each desk.

“De Mistura is dragging the regime in with his queries on their position paper, rather than allowing them to talk about what they want,” said the diplomat involved in the peace process.

“The regime had in the past a bit of space to play and to maneuver,” he said. “The regime knows it has to come and stay but is not prepared for the idea that it has to engage the opposition.”

(Writing by Tom Miles; Editing by Pravin Char)

U.N. tells Syrian government to go faster, get specific in Geneva talks

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria’s government must do more to present its ideas about a political transition and not merely talk about principles of peacemaking, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Friday after a fifth day of peace talks.

The end of a week of talks in Geneva came as Syria neared the three-week mark in its “cessation of hostilities”, a temporary truce in the five-year-old civil war that has largely held but was marred by “some incidents” on Friday, he said.

“We are in a hurry,” he told reporters after what he called an “intense” day and meetings with Syria’s government delegation and the main opposition, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC).

De Mistura said he had given both sides weekend homework so the negotiations could speed up on Monday, and during the second week of discussions he would go deeper into the issue of a political transition.

He had told the government delegation that they could talk about procedures if they wished, but it was impossible to avoid dealing with the substance, he said.

“In the end, people in Syria don’t need procedure, they need reality and they expect that from us.” Syria’s war has killed more than 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis with more than half the pre-war population displaced.

Next week he aims to build “a minimum common platform” to better understand how to approach a post-war transition, which is the core issue to be tackled at the next round of talks in April, he said. “We are already aiming very clearly for that.”

De Mistura said he had been impressed by the depth of the engagement in the process by the HNC, including substantive points on its vision of a peaceful transition.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has rejected opposition demands he give up power as a precondition for lasting peace.

De Mistura said the talks saw “no walkouts, no excessive rhetoric, no breakdowns… despite the fact that I am obviously still detecting large distances” between the two sides.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, Stephanie Nebehay and Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Syrian opposition says refugees will return home as soon as it’s safe

GENEVA (Reuters) – Millions of Syrian refugees just want to return home and will do so if peace talks in Geneva are successful and the fighting ends, a spokesman for the main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said on Friday.

More than 4.8 million Syrians are refugees in countries bordering Syria, including Lebanon and Turkey, and in north Africa, while a further 900,000 have applied for asylum in Europe, mostly Germany, since the war began five years ago, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

“Honestly, if you ask any person about what place is better for him, he will say home,” said Salim al-Muslat as a round of U.N.-mediated peace talks entered its fifth day.

“We appreciate what the other countries did, embracing the Syrian people and the Syrian refugees. But their presence in these countries is temporary, they must return and they will return when they find a safe home in Syria,” Muslat said.”They are waiting for the results of these negotiations. If the results are positive, everyone will pack their luggage and head to Syria.”

Muslat said the negotiating team representing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was procrastinating and refusing to enter direct talks with the HNC delegation, which wants to get quickly into negotiating a political transition.

“If they insist on indirect talks, they came here in Geneva just to waste time and buy time for Assad,” he said.

Although the HNC is the main opposition delegation, the United Nations’ mediator Staffan de Mistura has also invited several other groups who say they are part of the anti-Assad opposition.

“With all respect to some people who were invited by Mr de Mistura as consultants or whatever, most of them, they were sent by the regime,” Muslat said.

“They’ve been defending this regime even when he (Assad) is committing crimes in Syria and I don’t think that’s acceptable for the Syrians. The Syrians want people who care about them to represent them here.”

The Geneva talks are part of a diplomatic push launched with U.S. and Russian support to end a war that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Russian warplanes leave Syria, raising U.N. hopes for peace talks

MOSCOW/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Russian warplanes flew home from Syria on Tuesday as Moscow started to withdraw forces that have tipped the war President Bashar al-Assad’s way, and the U.N. envoy said he hoped the move would help peace talks in Geneva.

As the first aircraft touched down in Russia, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura called President Vladimir Putin’s surprise move a “significant development” toward resolving a conflict which this week passes its fifth anniversary.

Assad’s opponents hope Putin’s announcement on Monday that most Russian forces would be withdrawn signaled a shift in his support. However, its full significance is not yet clear: Russia is keeping an air base and undeclared number of forces in Syria.

Russian jets were in action against Islamic State on Tuesday. Assad also still enjoys military backing from Iran, which has sent forces to Syria along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Russia said last month Assad was out of step with its diplomacy, prompting speculation Putin is pushing him to be more flexible at the Geneva talks, where his government has ruled out discussion of the presidency or a negotiated transfer of power.

Damascus has dismissed any talk of differences with its ally and says the planned withdrawal was coordinated and the result of army gains on the ground.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, whose government supports the opposition, indicated the gaps in Western understanding of Putin, saying he had “no insight at all into Russia’s strategy” after a decision that came out of the blue.

The West had been equally surprised by Putin’s decision to intervene. “Unfortunately none of us knows what the intent of Mr Putin is when he carries out any action, which is why he is a very difficult partner in any situation like this,” Hammond said.

Analysts in Moscow said Putin’s acquisition of a seat at the diplomatic top table may have motivated his move to scale back his costly Syria campaign.

“MOMENT OF TRUTH”

Russia appeared to be following through on its pledge, the U.S. White House said, but spokesman Josh Earnest said it was too early to assess the broader implications, adding Moscow did not give the United States direct notice of its withdrawal plan.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed Putin’s announcement and said he planned to visit Moscow next week for what he called the best opportunity in years to end the war.

The Geneva talks are part of a diplomatic push launched with U.S.-Russian support to end a conflict that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis, and allowed for the rise of Islamic State. Opening the indirect talks, de Mistura said Syria faced a “moment of truth”.

U.S.-Russian cooperation has already brought about a lull in the war via a “cessation of hostilities agreement”, though many violations have been reported.

Opposition negotiators demanded on Tuesday that the government spell out its thoughts about a political transition in Syria, saying there had been no progress on freeing detainees, who were being executed at a rate of 50 a day.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) used their first meeting in the round of peace talks to give de Mistura a set of general principles to guide the transition.

A peace process for Syria endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in December calls for a Syrian-led process that establishes “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, a new constitution, and free, fair elections within 18 months.

The HNC wants Assad out of power by the start of a transition. While some rebels have expressed guarded optimism at Putin’s announcement, others doubt he is about to put serious pressure on Assad.

“We do not trust them,” said Fadi Ahmad of the First Coastal Division, who says his rebel group has been fighting a Russian-backed government offensive near the Turkish border throughout the cessation agreement that came into effect on Feb. 27.

The Syrian government, which had been losing territory to rebels before Russia intervened, had indicated it was in no mood to give ground to the opposition on the eve of the talks that started on Monday, calling the presidency a “red line”.

PILOTS WELCOMED, RUSSIAN JETS STAGE STRIKES

Russian television showed the first group of Su-34 jets landing from Syria at a base in the south of the country.

The pilots were greeted by 200-300 servicemen, journalists, and their wives and daughters, waving Russian flags, balloons in red white and blue, and flowers. They were mobbed and thrown in the air by the crowd. A brass band played Soviet military songs and the national anthem. Two priests paraded a religious icon.

Russia flew more than 9,000 sorties during the Syrian operation, according to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Military officials say they destroyed arms dumps, weapons and fuel supplies being used by what they called terrorists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports on the war using sources on the ground, says Russian air strikes have killed more than 1,700 civilians. Moscow denies that.

Showing Russian warplanes were still active in Syria, heavy air support was reported helping the Syrian army make major gains against Islamic State near the ancient city of Palmyra. IS is not included in the cessation of hostilities.

At least 26 people were killed east of the Islamic State-held city on Tuesday, the British-based Observatory reported.

“MESSAGE TO ASSAD”

Putin said Russia had largely fulfilled its objectives in a campaign which has so far cost Russia $700-$800 million according to a Reuters estimate, an additional financial burden at a time of low oil prices.

Russia, which has haunting memories of the long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, said it would be keeping its most advanced air defense system, the S-400, in Syria.

A Western diplomat said Putin would “now move to focus on the peace talks and this will put pressure on the Syrian government to negotiate”. The diplomat added: “We don’t know if he is giving up on Assad but we know that the Russians are delivering a message to Assad that they are keen on negotiations over transition to proceed.”

Moscow has said it is up to the Syrian people, not outside powers, to decide Assad’s future. Even Assad’s enemies in the West have moved away from demanding he leave power immediately.

In Geneva, U.N. war crimes investigators on Syria said lower-level perpetrators should be prosecuted by foreign authorities until senior military and political figures can be brought before international justice.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry, which has documented atrocities by all sides, has compiled a confidential list of suspects and maintains a database with 5,000 interviews.

“The adoption of measures that lay the ground for accountability need not and should not wait for a final peace agreement to be reached,” Paulo Pinheiro, chief of the inquiry panel, told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans, Lisa Barrington, Stephanie Nebehay, Suleiman al-Khalidi, Samia Nakhoul, Tom Miles, William James, Jason Bush and Jack Stubbs; Writing by Tom Perry and Philippa Fletcher, editing by Peter Millership and David Stamp)

U.N. rights envoy urges prosecution of North Korean leader

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations human rights investigator for North Korea called on Monday for leader Kim Jong Un and senior officials in the country to be prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity.

Marzuki Darusman told the U.N. Human Rights Council that North Korea is devoting huge resources to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction while many of its citizens lack sufficient food and others work in “slave-like conditions”.

“We are now at a crucial stage, therefore there is a fundamental need for countries to make that next step in ensuring accountability is undertaken,” he said.

The delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) boycotted the session. The European Union, United States and Japan supported Darusman’s call for accountability, although they did not refer to Kim by name.

Ambassador Robert King, U.S. envoy on North Korea, denounced the “egregious human rights violations committed by the DPRK” and said that the United States would work with other countries to “seek ways to advance accountability for those most responsible”.

China, Pyongyang’s ally, took a more conciliatory tone, saying human rights issues should not be politicized and calling for a comprehensive approach to dealing with North Korea.

China also rejected Darusman’s findings that North Koreans who flee across the border to China were being forced back to their homeland illegally.

North Korea Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, in a speech to the Geneva forum on March 1, said it would boycott any session that examined its record and would “never, ever” be bound by any such resolutions.

Darusman, referring to a report he issued last month, said: “I would like to reiterate my appeal to the international community to move forward to ensure accountability of the senior leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, including that of Mr. Kim Jong Un.”

This could be via the International Criminal Court (ICC) but failing consensus among major powers, North Korea’s leadership could be prosecuted in a third country, he said.

He called for the Council to set up a panel of three experts to look into “structure and methods of accountability”.

Political prison camps, torture, “slave-like labor” and religious persecution remain features of the state apparatus, two years after a landmark U.N. investigation into crimes against humanity, Darusman said.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range missile the following month.

“The denial of human rights to its citizens internally and this aggressive behavior externally are basically two sides of the same coin. The country is pouring a large amount of resources into developing weapons of mass destruction, while large parts of its population continue to suffer from food insecurity,” Darusman said.

John Fisher of Human Rights Watch said that North Korea had “horrific” forced labor camps, public executions and a history of mass malnutrition and even “mass starvation”.

“Generations of North Koreans have suffered at the hands of the Kim family and its elite,” Fisher said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jermey Gaunt)

U.N. talks aim for Syria roadmap, no ‘Plan B’ but war

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N. mediator said on Monday there was no “Plan B” other than a resumption of conflict in the Syrian war if the first of three rounds of talks which aim to agree a “clear roadmap” for Syria fail to make progress.

Syria faces a moment of truth, Staffan de Mistura said when he opened talks to end a five-year war which has displaced half the population, sent refugees streaming into Europe and turned Syria into a battlefield for foreign forces and jihadis.

The talks are the first in more than two years and come amid a marked reduction in fighting after last month’s “cessation of hostilities”, sponsored by Washington and Moscow and accepted by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and many of his foes.

But the limited truce, which excludes the powerful Islamic State and Nusra Front groups, is fragile. Both sides have accused each other of multiple violations, and they arrived in Geneva with what look like irreconcilable agendas.

The Syrian opposition says the talks must focus on setting up a transitional governing body with full executive power, and that Assad must leave power at the start of the transition. Damascus says Assad’s opponents are deluded if they think they will take power at the negotiating table.

The head of the government delegation, Bashar Ja’afari, described his first meeting with de Mistura on Monday as positive and constructive, adding he submitted a document entitled “Basic Elements for a Political Solution”.

De Mistura said some ideas had been floated in a meeting he described as a preparatory session, ahead of a further meeting on Wednesday which would focus on core issues. Asked about the gulf between the two teams, he said it was the nature of negotiations that both sides start off with tough positions.

In a sign of how wide that gulf is, de Mistura is meeting the two sides separately – at least initially.

The talks must focus on political transition, which is the “mother of all issues”, the U.N. envoy said before his talks with Ja’afari. Separate groups would keep tackling humanitarian issues and the cessation of hostilities.

“As far as I know, the only Plan B available is return to war, and to even worse war than we had so far,” he said.

PAST FAILURES

Several ceasefires and peace talks have been attempted since the conflict, which has killed 250,000 people, broke out five years ago this week.

Hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers deployed to Syria in 2012, but pulled out after fighting resumed. Peace talks in Geneva two years ago collapsed after making no progress.

De Mistura said that if he saw no willingness to negotiate in this latest search for a political agreement, he would hand the issue “back to those who have influence, and that is the Russian Federation, the USA … and to the Security Council”.

Russia’s military intervention in Syria in September helped turn the tide of war in Assad’s favor after months of gains in western Syria by rebel fighters, who were aided by foreign military supplies including U.S.-made anti-tank missiles.

The reduction in fighting has allowed aid to be brought to besieged areas, though the opposition says the deliveries to rebel-held territory fall well short of needs.

Clashes have taken place on many fronts. Government forces and allies on Monday fought insurgents including Islamist groups in western Syria, such as Latakia and Homs provinces, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said there had been a general rise in the daily death toll after an initial drop that occurred at the start of the truce.

In the northern province of Aleppo, Kurdish forces fought with fighters from Islamist factions while rebel forces battled Islamic State militants, the Observatory said.

The emergence of Islamic State in eastern Syria and across the border in Iraq led Washington and its Western and Arab allies to launch an air campaign against the ultra-hardline Islamist group in 2014.

“CLEAR ROADMAP”

The opposition are holding out little hope that Geneva will bring them nearer to their goal of toppling Assad, accusing the government of preparing for more war. They also fear that the international focus on confronting Islamic State has led Washington to soften its opposition to the Syrian president.

Rebels say they are ready to fight on despite their recent defeats. They hope foreign backers – notably Saudi Arabia – will send them more powerful weapons including anti-aircraft missiles if the political process collapses.

The first round of talks are scheduled to run until around March 24, followed by a break of 7-10 days, then a second round of at least two weeks before another recess and a third round.

“By then we believe we should have at least a clear roadmap,” de Mistura said. “I’m not saying agreement, but a clear roadmap because that’s what Syria is expecting from all of us.”

He did not mention whether Kurdish leaders would be involved for the first time, but said that the “proximity” format of indirect talks gave him flexibility to hear as many voices as possible, and all Syrians should be given a chance.

The main Kurdish YPG militia, which controls a swathe of northern Syria and is backed by the United States in combat with Islamic State fighters, has so far been excluded from talks in line with the views of Turkey, which considers it a terrorist group.

“The rule of the game will be inclusiveness,” de Mistura said. “In fact, the list of those whom we are going to consult or meet, or will be part of — eventually, I hope — not only of proximity negotiations but in fact direct negotiations is going to be constantly updated.”

(Writing by Dominic Evans, editing by Peter Millership)

Syria opposition to attend Geneva peace talks, but says Assad escalating war

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s main opposition group said it would attend peace talks on Monday but accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of preparing to escalate the war to strengthen its negotiating position.

The U.N.-brokered talks, which coincide with the fifth anniversary of the conflict, will take place in Geneva two weeks after the start of a ceasefire agreement.

The truce deal has reduced violence although not halted the fighting, with further hostilities reported in western Syria on Friday.

The High Negotiations Committee said it would attend the peace talks as part of its “commitment to international efforts to stop the spilling of Syrian blood and find a political solution”.

But in its statement on Friday it played down any chance of reaching agreement with the Syrian government to end the war that has killed more than 250,000 people and led to a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe.

Russia said it expected its ally Syria to attend, although Damascus has yet to publicly confirm it will do so. The Syrian foreign minister is expected to announce his government’s position on the talks on Saturday.

Peace talks convened two years ago collapsed because the sides were unable to agree an agenda: Damascus wanted a focus on fighting terrorism, the term it uses for the rebellion, while the opposition wanted to discuss a transitional government.

The latest talks are intended to focus on future political arrangements in Syria, a new constitution and elections, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said.

The opposition HNC said it wanted the talks to concentrate on the establishment of an interim governing body with full executive powers.

HNC coordinator Riad Hijab said the group was “concerned with representing the just cause of the Syrian people … and investing in all available chances to alleviate the Syrian people’s suffering”.

“We know that they (the government) are committing crimes, and that they are preparing an air and ground escalation in the coming period,” he said, without elaborating.

HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat said they expected a government escalation with the aim of strengthening Damascus’s position at the negotiating table.

“I believe this is a strategy,” he said.

“FAILING PROJECT”

A prominent Syrian dissident who is not part of the Saudi-backed HNC, Haytham Manna, said he would stay away from the talks, which he regarded as a “failing project”.

Manna, co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council that includes Kurdish members, boycotted the last round of talks because the Kurds were not included.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said however that de Mistura should this time include representatives of Kurdish groups, which have been fighting in Syria.

Kurdish groups such as the PYD party and its affiliated YPG militia have not been invited so far. Regional power Turkey does not want them in Geneva and views the YPG as a terrorist group. Russia says the Kurds are a legitimate part of a future Syria, and should be at the table.

There has been speculation that they will be included in the coming round. De Mistura says he has not expanded the list of invitees, but the talks’ format gives him flexibility to consult whomever he wants.

PYD co-chair Saleh Muslim said Kurds should be included for any political settlement to work.

“We believe that if we are not present, the process will not be completed in the right way,” he said.

The cessation of hostilities agreement which came into force on Feb. 27 does not include the two main jihadist groups, Islamic State and the Nusra Front.

A source close to the government said the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, is aiming to capture the historic city of Palmyra from Islamic State and open a road to the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, where the jihadists are also established.

The Russian air force has hit Palmyra with dozens of air strikes since Wednesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Syrian government forces were on Friday battling Islamic State 7 km (4 miles) from the ancient site that fell to the jihadists last May.

Islamic State has blown up ancient temples and tombs since capturing Palmyra in what the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime.

The capture of Palmyra and further eastward advances into Deir al-Zor would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of the Russian intervention last September.

Warplanes also hit areas of western Syria on Friday, the Observatory said. An air raid by the government side killed at least five people in a rebel-held area of Aleppo.

It also reported clashes between insurgents and government forces in the northern Latakia countryside.

In northern Aleppo province clashes continued between Kurdish fighters and insurgents, in a fight that has pitted the YPG and its allies against rebels supported through Turkey.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Lisa Barrington, Tom Miles, Denis Dyomkin and Alexander Winning; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Pravin Char)