Syrian peace process

Bulgaria accepts air strikes of the US armed forces on an airfield of the Syrian Air Force as part of the efforts for solving the problem of chemical weapons in Syria.

 This is laid out in an official release of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry on the occasion of the US missile attack on Syrian Shayrat Airfield, BGNES reports, quoted by BNR.

U.N.-backed Syria peace talks resumed in Geneva on March 23, with little hope of a breakthrough as no concessions were unlikely.  

The United Nations deputy Syria envoy Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy met government negotiators at a high-end hotel in the Swiss city, before heading to another hotel to see the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC).  

U.N. Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura will be in Ankara on March 23 to hold talks with the Turkish Foreign Ministry's undersecretary. 

Peace efforts for Syria floundered on March 15 as a third round of talks that were sponsored by Russia and Turkey ended with no progress after rebels refused to show up to a meeting in Kazakhstan.  

A third round of Russian and Turkey-backed talks on the Syrian war opened in the Kazakh capital Astana on March 14 without armed rebel groups, leaving little hope for a breakthrough in ending the six-year conflict.
  
The talks, sponsored by regime allies Russia and Iran and rebel-backer Turkey, come as other diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed have proved fruitless.  

Syrian rebel factions will not attend a new round of negotiations with government figures in the Kazakh capital scheduled for March 14-15, an opposition delegation spokesman said, while the Kazakh foreign minister said Russia, Turkey and Iran were pressing ahead with the fresh round of Syria talks.

Russia does not think the Astana talks on Syria may substitute for the Geneva process, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told Russian agency TASS.

"It is an integral process," Peskov stated when asked if the format of the Astana negotiations might substitute for the Geneva talks.

The head of the Syrian government delegation at the Geneva peace talks has criticized Turkey's "aggression" and said his nation has the right to defend itself from foreign forces on its soil.

Russia accused the main Syrian opposition group at peace talks in Geneva of sabotaging the process on March 2, a day after Moscow's Foreign Ministry officials met the rebels for rare talks on how to narrow their differences.

Several more rounds of Syrian peace talks will be needed to reach any accord, the U.N. envoy bidding to kick start the sputtering process has told the rival sides, setting out three key discussion areas: governance, constitution and elections.