5 February 2016, 12:17 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) — Russia hopes that intra-Syrian talks can resume before February 25, the day scheduled by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura after the suspension of negotiations earlier this week, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin said on Friday.
“I'm hopeful, I hope they can start before February 25,” Churkin told reporters on this way to the UN Security Council's closed door meeting on Syria.
On Wednesday, de Mistura put the Syrian talks on hold for three weeks. The intra-Syria talks were stalled after the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee said that their preconditions for the talks, namely the provision of humanitarian aid to besieged Syrian towns and the immediate end to the airstrikes, had not been met.
The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, said Friday that Moscow regrets that the start of the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva was shrouded by the non-constructive positions of some of the opposition figures present at the meeting.
On Thursday, Russia's envoy to the UN office in Geneva, Alexey Borodavkin, said that de Mistura should have been more "picky" about the groups he handpicked to represent the Syrian opposition at the talks.
