“Glad that Geneva talks on Syria started. We now expect the regime to give positive signals like humanitarian access,” the German Foreign Office’s Twitter account quoted Steinmeier as saying in Rome.
The Syrian government delegation headed by Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari arrived at the Palais des Nations mid-Tuesday to meet with UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.
On Monday, de Mistura met with the opposition delegates formed in Saudi Arabia at the United Nations Office at Geneva, marking a formal start of the intra-Syrian talks in line with the December UN Security Council's resolution on Syrian settlement. Resolution 2254 aims to bring the entire spectrum of political groups in the crisis-torn country to the negotiating table.
Staffan is expected to hold another meeting with the opposition later in the day.
In addition to the Riyadh-backed opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), a group of delegates formed after talks in Moscow and Cairo is present at the negotiations that formally began on January 29.
