Over 50 killed in Syria

Pessimism pervades talks

BEIRUT: Fighting between insurgent groups east of Damascus killed more than 50 people on Monday, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The fighting has pitted the Jaish al-Islam group, which is part of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, against rival factions Failaq al-Rahman and the Fustat Army. The clashes began in late April.

Meanwhile, major powers sought at talks on Tuesday to reimpose a ceasefire in Syria and ensure aid reaches besieged areas, with Moscow and Washington deeply divided over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad and violence rumbling around the country.

The aim of the conference, which brings together 17 countries backing the two warring sides, is to convince armed factions and opposition leaders to restart negotiations with the government.

Officials and diplomats said the talks, including the United States, Russia, Iran, European and Middle East powers, were unlikely to lead to major decisions that could change the course of the five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people.

A surge in bloodshed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, wrecked a partial "cessation of hostilities" sponsored by Washington and Moscow from February, which had allowed UN-brokered indirect talks that included the warring sides to take place in Geneva.

Those talks collapsed last month after the opposition walked out due to a surge in bloodshed.

UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura hopes to launch a new round of peace talks between the two sides by the end of May.

"We’ll need to see the guarantors of the ceasefire - Russia and the US - putting something down that will really convince the opposition that this process is worthwhile," a senior Western diplomat involved in the talks said.

"Sadly, I don’t sense that and fear the US will try to impose a text that is excessively optimistic, but for which its implementation will not be possible."

The Geneva talks aim to end a war that has created the world’s worst refugee crisis, allowed for the rise of the Islamic State group and drawn in regional and global powers.

Washington insists Assad must go but the president, backed by Moscow and Tehran, is fighting for territory and refuses to step down.

A Western official said the meeting, chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, was focusing more on the logistics of expanding and implementing the "cessation of hostilities" and increasing aid deliveries that have been blocked in some areas.