Syrian rebels meet in Kazakhstan ahead of talks
Syrian rebel delegates huddled in Kazakhstan Sunday ahead of talks with government representatives scheduled to begin Monday, the first such negotiations between the two sides in a year. At the top of the agenda is an effort to consolidate a fragile cease-fire agreement reached last month and ease humanitarian suffering in the war-ravaged country.
The talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana, are sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey, and are the latest attempt to forge a political settlement to end a war that has by most estimates killed more than 400,000 people and displaced more than half the country's population.
The UN's Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, is participating in the talks, which are to be followed by more political talks in February in Geneva. The new US administration is not, because of the "immediate demands of the transition," the State Department said Saturday.
