Representatives of the main Syrian opposition group will meet with the United Nations’ special envoy on Sunday, a member of the group said, amid a third round of peace talks aimed at ending the war.
“We are here, we are ready to make this a success, we are ready to start negotiations,” Salim al-Muslat, a spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, said Saturday.
U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura has already met with representatives of the Syrian government, but he said Friday in Geneva that any substantive talks would have to wait until HNC members arrived.
De Mistura had urged the opposition to come regardless of whether the Syrian government met its demand that the government fulfill conditions laid out in a U.N. Security Council resolution on the peace process.
“At least we should see something on the ground there in Syria,” al-Muslat said. “We should really stop these massacres against our people. So please help us, save our children, save the many children of Syria. Then we are willing to do anything that will put an end to this war.”
He added, “We want to put an end to ISIS, to this terrorism in Syria. We want to put an end to what this dictatorship is doing. We want to see (a) new Syria.”
‘Serious talk about peace’
The peace talks began Friday after a series of delays. They were initially set to kick off last Monday but were held up because of ongoing discussions about who should represent the opposition, de Mistura said.
The current talks are the first time in two years that the warring sides in Syria are meeting in an effort to end the crisis there. The goal is a nationwide ceasefire agreement among all factions other than ISIS and the al Qaeda-affiliated al Nusra Front.
The last round of peace talks ended in February 2014 with the parties agreeing to an agenda for another round of talks.
“What we want to ensure is that this time it will not be like Geneva II,” de Mistura told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, referring to the 2014 talks. “(We want) a serious talk about peace and not talk about talk.”
De Mistura has said his mandate is to involve “the broadest possible spectrum of the opposition” to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Talks would focus on enforcing a broad ceasefire and opening the way for increased humanitarian aid to affected populations in the country, ravaged by nearly five years of a war that the United Nations says has cost more than 300,000 lives.
The Syrian conflict started in 2011 after protesters began demanding Assad’s ouster. When his regime repressed the protests, clashes escalated into a civil war, gradually becoming a bloody free-for-all as the opposition, government troops and ISIS extremists fight for dominance.
Aid group: More dying in Madaya
One of the Syrian towns in dire need of humanitarian help is Madaya, where 16 people have died in the past few weeks since three rare aid convoys dropped some food and medical supplies, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
In addition to the starvation deaths, there still are 320 cases of malnutrition in the town of 200,000, the group said. Some of the cases are so severe that the people could die without treatment, the group said.
“It is totally unacceptable that people continue to die from starvation, and that critical medical cases remain in the town when they should have been evacuated weeks ago,” Director of Operations Brice de le Vingne said.
Medics supported by Doctors Without Borders report malnutrition in other Syrian towns including Moadamiyah, southwest of Damascus.
“The warring parties responsible for these besiegement strategies need to allow unhindered medical and humanitarian access immediately, in accordance with International Humanitarian Law. This includes lifting any restrictions on medical evacuations from these zones,” said de le Vingne.
The United Nations says 400,000 Syrians badly need food aid.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant and political group that is accused by opposition activists of helping the Syrian government’s siege of Madaya, has blamed rebel groups for preventing aid convoys from reaching the town and two others.
The town is not far from the border with Lebanon.