Syrian Opposition to Attend Peace Talks

Despite initial hesitation, Syria’s main opposition group – the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) – agreed on Monday to attend the upcoming peace talks in Geneva on March 14, a monitor reports.

The committee’s representatives are set to arrive in Geneva on Friday. The group’s spokesperson, Riad Nassan Agha, said the HNC had noted a decline in reported cease-fire breaches and an increase in the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

The United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura had initially intended to hold peace talks late last month, but pushed the date back as the United States and Russia led efforts to broker a temporary truce between the warring parties.

Agence France-Presse reported on Monday that the government in Damascus has also confirmed its willingness to attend the talks.

World leaders are hoping the Geneva peace talks will lead to a transitional period and an end to the five-year-long civil war.

Water Restored in Aleppo

Following a 48-day shutdown, al-Khafseh water treatment plant resumed its operations over the weekend, providing water to some 2 million people in Aleppo, the U.N. News Center reports.

Before its deliberate shutdown over a month ago, the facility was the only source of clean drinking water for the entire population of Aleppo, producing nearly 400 million liters of clean drinking water per day.

“Getting clean water flowing again for the people of Aleppo is lifesaving,” said Hanaa Singer, the representative of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). “One million children rely on this facility for safe drinking water essential for preventing waterborne diseases, which can be life-threatening and in extreme cases deadly for children,” she stated.

UNICEF has previously documented the use of water as a weapon of war by all sides of the conflict in areas including Aleppo, Damascus, rural Damascus, Daraa and Hama. In 2015 alone, nearly 5 million people faced “potentially life-threatening water shortages” due to deliberate cuts in water.

Meanwhile, aid groups continued to make progress in delivering much-needed food and medicine to hard-to-reach areas across the country. U.N. humanitarian convoys reached three areas in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Kafr Batna yesterday, according to the Associated Press.

U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said the deliveries provided humanitarian aid for more than 16,000 people, saying the two weeks of calm that have come along with the cessation of hostilities agreement have offered hope to the 6.5 million people displaced throughout the country and the more than 4.5 refugees who have fled.

19 Killed in Airstrike on Marketplace as Violence Continues

An airstrike from either a Syrian or Russian fighter jet hit a marketplace in northwestern Syria on Monday, killing at least 19 people and straining the cessation of hostilities, Reuters reports.

The death toll from the airstrike, which hit a market selling diesel fuel in rebel-held Idlib province, was likely to rise, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

HNC chair Riad Hijab said “tens” of people had been killed in what he described as a “massacre.” There was no comment from the Syrian government.

In another surge in violence, the al-Qaida affiliated al-Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups not included in the U.S.-Russia-brokered truce agreement attacked pro-government forces in southern Aleppo province, capturing the village of al-Ais and two nearby hilltops, according to the Observatory.

The Observatory reported “many casualties” but did not give an exact figure. This was the first advance by al-Nusra Front in the area this year.

Recommended Reads

• The Guardian: War Could Cost Syria Nearly £1tn in Lost Economic Growth by 2020
• BBC News: Syria Conflict: Spring Truce Brings Calm, but for How Long?
• The Washington Post: Are Russia’s 20 Million Muslims Seething About Putin Bombing Syria?
• Newsweek: Now Is the Time for U.S. Boots on the Ground in Syria
• The Guardian: Turkey Outlines ‘One for One’ Plan to Tackle Syrian Refugee Crisis
• Huffington Post: New Breed of Syrian Activists
• Foreign Policy: Syrian Doctors Are Saving German Lives — and That’s a Problem
• War on the Rocks: This Is Your Jihad on Drugs

Top image: Syrian solders keep watch on a roof with portraits of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in al-Tall, a town on the northern outskirts of Damascus, on March 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)