The Denver Post

U.N. backs Syria peace e≠orts

Vote doesn’t endorse shaky cease-fire, but it applauds attempts to end fighting

- By Edith M. Lederer and Philipp Issa

beirut» The U.N. Security Council unanimousl­y adopted a resolution Saturday supporting efforts by Russia and Turkey to end the nearly six-year conflict in Syria and jump-start peace negotiatio­ns, as a fragile countrywid­e cease-fire wavered.

The resolution also calls for the “rapid, safe and unhindered” delivery of humanitari­an aid throughout Syria. And it anticipate­s a meeting of the Syrian government and opposition representa­tive in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana in late January.

The resolution’s final text dropped an endorsemen­t of the Syria cease-fire agreement reached Thursday, simply taking note of it but welcoming and supporting RussianTur­kish efforts to end the violence. Western members of the council sought the last-minute changes to the draft resolution to clarify the U.N.’s role and the meaning of the agreement brokered by Moscow and Ankara.

U.S. deputy ambassador Michele Sison said the Obama administra­tion strongly supports a cease-fire and “unfettered humanitari­an access,” but she expressed regret that additional documentat­ion to the agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey with details about its implementa­tion have not yet been made public.

Meanwhile on the ground in Syria, rebels warned on Saturday that cease-fire violations by pro-government forces threatened to undermine the two-day-old agreement intended to pave the way for talks between the government and the opposition in the new year.

Airstrikes pounded opposition-held villages and towns in the strategica­lly-important Barada Valley outside Damascus, activists said, prompting rebels to threaten to withdraw their compliance with a nationwide truce brokered by Russia and Turkey last week.

Rebels also accused the government of signing a different version of the agreement to the one they signed in the Turkish capital of Ankara, further complicati­ng the latest diplomatic efforts to bring an end to six years of war.

Nearly 50,000 people died in the conflict in 2016, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observator­y for Human Rights, which maintains networks of contacts on all sides of the war. More than 13,000 of them were civilians, according to the Observator­y. Various estimates have put the war’s overall toll at around 400,000 dead.

If the truce holds, the government and the opposition will be expected to meet for talks for the first time in nearly a year in the Kazakh capital of Astana in the second half of January. Those talks will be mediated by Russia, Turkey and Iran, though Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has said other key players including the United States are welcome to participat­e.

Churkin said after Saturday’s vote that the Astana talks will be the first face-to-face negotiatio­ns between the Syrian government and opposition and he expressed hope that 2017 will see a political settlement of the conflict that has claimed over 250,000 lives.

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