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Conflict in Syria

Arab League head: Syrian nation feels no changes after Geneva-2 conference.

CAIRO, February 03, (ITAR-TASS). The Geneva-2 international peace conference on Syria has not brought any tangible changes to the Syrian nation, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said.

Elaraby was summing up talks held during Geneva-2 - a forum organized by Russia and the United States that sought to negotiate a solution to the Syrian crisis, which has claimed over 100,000 lives and displaced millions since its start in 2011, according to UN statistics.

Geneva-2 opened on January 22 in Montreux, Switzerland, and continued on January 23-31 in Geneva. Its first round ended with no particular progress. The parties to the Syrian conflict took a pause for consultations and are expected to resume the talks on February 10.

The aim of the Syrian opposition’s delegation to the talks, Elaraby said, was to find ways to form a transitional government, as mentioned in the Geneva Communique. The delegation, he said, attended Geneva-2 on an invitation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in order to implement agreements reached in Geneva in 2012.

The Geneva Communique (or Geneva-1 Communique) was adopted on June 30, 2012 at a conference of an “action group” on Syria in Geneva. That conference is now commonly referred to as “Geneva-1.” Geneva-2 was a logical continuation of Geneva-1.

“But in practice, the conference members achieved none of the set goals in Geneva,” Elaraby said. “Neither a ceasefire, nor the settlement of the humanitarian crisis in Syria. And the nation has felt no changes.”

The Arab League has been calling on the United Nations Security Council to push through a ceasefire between the conflicting parties in Syria, Elaraby said. He lamented that violence escalation and continuing hostilities deteriorated the situation with Syrian refugees.

An international deal to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons, mediated in September 2013, prevented a likely US-led military intervention in the Middle East country.

The process of disarmament in Syria was launched after hundreds of civilians died in a chemical attack made on a Damascus suburb in August 2013. The most dangerous of Syria’s chemical weapons are to be destroyed at sea by the end of March, and the rest by June 30, 2014.

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