Syria peace talks stall after six days, mediator apologizes

After six days of mediation, which was the second round, in the Syria peace talks, no real progress has been made and the U.N.-Arab League mediator has apologized to the Syrian people suffering during this time.

Mediator Lakhdar Brahimi ended the second round of talks, noting that the peace talks had largely been fruitless so far, reports The Associated Press.

He did say that the next round of peace talks would aim to be more structured and focused, with one day set aside solely to aim to end the terrorism and violence in the country and another over the subject of setting up a new transitional government.

The latter point are what Western countries and others want from Syria, but the country has shown little interest in actually going through with it and actually is rejecting his mediation plan.

Brahimi actually said that the Syrian government had simply "refused." So he decided talks should take a break so each party involved can think about what they want and evaluate their willingness to get the peace talks to move forward.

BBC News reports that Saturday's talks ended after less than a half hour of mediation and Brahimi looked visibly tried from the lack of progress made in six days.

Over Syria's lack of willingness to talk on transitioning, he noted that it "raises the suspicion of the opposition that the government doesn't want to discuss [a transitional government] at all."

image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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