High Negotiations Committee

Syria's government and opposition meet on July 10 for a seventh round of UN-sponsored peace talks with little expectation of a breakthrough to end the six-year conflict.

The talks in Geneva open after a ceasefire took effect in three provinces in southern Syria on Sunday, with a monitor reporting that the region was mostly quiet despite scattered violations.

Russia on May 19 condemned strikes by the US-led coalition against Syrian forces as "unacceptable", state media reported, after the bombing of pro-government troops.     

The United States authorities have said current President Bashar al-Assad's departure is no longer a priority to end the conflict, netting reaction from the opposition in the war-thorn country.

However, on March 30, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in New York said the new administration of President Donald Trump is no longer focused on ousting Assad.

The United States has said that it is no longer focused on ousting President Bashar al-Assad as it seeks a new strategy to end Syria’s civil war.

American officials have been shifting away from their former insistence that he must go for some time, but now they have made it explicit.

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. 

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.

Syrian government forces on Feb. 20 escalated their bombing campaign around Damascus, raining shells down on rebel territory and sending out a "bloody message" just days before renewed peace talks in Geneva.  

Russia, Iran and Turkey are expected to discuss the modalities of a cease-fire they brokered in Syria at a meeting in Astana on Feb. 6 amid Turkey's mounting concerns that Syrian regime forces and its Shiite militia allies have violated the truce in opposition-held Wadi Barada and Eastern Ghouta. 

Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ümit Yalçın met political and military representatives of the Syrian opposition on Feb. 3 in Ankara to prepare for a meeting in Geneva on Feb. 20, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources told the Hürriyet Daily News.