DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — On Friday, the United Nations announced that highly-anticipated talks on Syrian reconciliation started in Geneva with a meeting between UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura and Jaafari. The sides met for talks that lasted 2.5 hours
The website reported that De Mistura said that the Syrian nation itself should lead the process of reconciliation.
In December, 2015, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on settling the Syrian conflict, which reaffirmed the goals of the Vienna agreements to bring the entire spectrum of political groups in the crisis-torn country to the negotiating table and stated that the next round of the talks would take place in January, 2016.
The negotiations started in Geneva despite the absence of some delegations from the Syrian opposition. However, De Mistura said Friday that he expected his talks with the delegation of the Syrian opposition to start as early as on January 31.
