[Breaking news update at 1:36 p.m. ET]
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Wednesday announced “a pause” in talks aimed at resolving Syria’s years-long war.
Discussions are slated to resume February 25 in Geneva.
“There is more work to be done from both sides,” de Mistura said. “Both sides (have) expressed their interest in getting the political process started.”
[Originally story published at 11:13 a.m. ET]
As warring forces in Syria’s grinding civil war meet in Switzerland in an effort to end the conflict, Syrian government forces, with Russian air support, are gaining strategic ground in an offensive north of Aleppo, according to Syrian state media and a monitoring group.
The offensive places further strain on the precarious talks in Geneva, where Syrian government and opposition representatives are gathered to push for a nationwide ceasefire in the nearly 5-year-old war.
Syrian government forces, backed by pro-government militia, are closing in on two pro-regime Shiite strongholds, Nubul and Zahraa, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Aleppo in the country’s northwest, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday.
The villages have been under siege by rebel groups, including Islamist radicals. The observatory reported that more than 70 rebels and their allies were killed in the fighting, along with at least 26 regime soldiers.
Opposition: ‘Massive acceleration’
The assault has complicated efforts in Geneva to secure a ceasefire in the conflict, with the main opposition delegation decrying the escalation in violence Tuesday and canceling a planned meeting with U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura in response.
The opposition group, known as the High Negotiations Committee, condemned Russia’s “indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian areas in northern Syria, particularly on rural Aleppo,” and said a “massive acceleration of Russian and regime military aggression” had taken place.
It cited the bombardment among its reasons for calling off the appointment with de Mistura on Tuesday.
The observatory said the village of Ratyan, about 13 kilometers from Zahraa, was hit heavily with airstrikes in 24 hours from Monday to Tuesday.
Parties have gathered in Syria seeking an immediate reduction in violence, with government and opposition groups meeting with a United Nations special envoy, rather than face-to-face, as they try to find common ground.
The High Negotiations Committee said Wednesday that its delegates were meeting with de Mistura in a Geneva hotel — not in a U.N. building — as the talks’ stuttering progress continued.
Lavrov: Airstrikes ‘will not cease’
In comments made in Rome on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Moscow to halt the bombing as parties in Geneva pushed for a ceasefire.
But his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, vowed to continue the airstrikes “until terrorism groups in the Arab Republic are defeated,” according to Russian state-operated news agency RIA Novosti.
“Russian airstrikes will not cease until we truly win over terrorist groups: Daesh (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra and such. I see no reason to stop these airstrikes,” Lavrov said during a visit to Oman on Wednesday, RIA Novosti reported.
Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict has decisively helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime had suffered major setbacks before Russian air power entered the fray in September.
The West has criticized Moscow for targeting all opposition to the Assad regime, including Western-backed moderates, rather than focusing on ISIS and other Islamist terror groups.
ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, as U.N. Security Council-sanctioned terror groups, are not party to the talks in Geneva.
Rebel supply lines threatened
The regime push in rural Aleppo is threatening to cut crucial rebel supply lines.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as a result of the offensive, Syrian government forces now control one of the key supply routes used by rebels through the countryside north of Aleppo, linking Turkey to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Rebel groups in the area told CNN that they were holding some ground and reinforcing their positions.
International efforts to broker a solution to the Syrian conflict have intensified this year with the worsening of the migrant crisis and the global rise of the Syrian-headquartered terror group ISIS.
Two earlier rounds of peace talks yielded no lasting ceasefires, leaving the conflict to claim more than 300,000 lives.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has ruled out amnesty for the most serious crimes committed in the war.