Extreme human suffering should not be trigger for Syria aid: ICRC
Extreme human suffering such as that seen in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya should not be the trigger for negotiating humanitarian aid deliveries in Syria, the Red Cross has said, Reuters reports.
"Delivering aid once is not a solution. The only acceptable solution is to give people regular access to humanitarian aid," Pawel Krzysiek, ICRC spokesman, said ahead of an international pledging conference in London on Feb. 4.
"The more time the parties take to negotiate another aid delivery ... we are risking again the situation of too little and too late," Krzysiek told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview on Thursday.
A stall outside the UN headquarters in Geneva has activists dressed up as various figures -- including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. President Obama, Russian President Putin and Syrian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov serving up "siege soup" to Syrians.
The main Saudi-backed Syrian opposition has demanded that the UN implement a resolution to stop sieges and bombardments before it will attend the talks.
Syria peace talks to get under way amid uncertainty
The BBC reports that the Syria peace talks are set to get underway this afternoon in Geneva, though there is still confusion over whether opposition groups will attend,
A delegation from the Syrian government has arrived in Geneva and UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has said that he would open the talks by meeting them.
Two British men jailed for seeking support for IS group
A court in the UK has sentenced two British men to prison terms today for trying to win support for the IS group outside a store on London's Oxford Street, a busy shopping and tourist street.
Ibrahim Anderson, 38, and Shah Jahan Khan, 62, were part of a group that set up a stall near the Top Shop fashion store in August 2014.
Both men denied trying to attract support for IS.
Anderson has been jailed for three years and Khan for two years.
Child wounded in IS shelling on Turkish school has died
A 12-year-old schoolgirl injured when a shell fired from an IS-controlled area of Syria hit a school in the Turkish border area of Kilis on Jan. 18 has died, Turkish media is reporting.
Gulten Canpolet had been under treatment in the intensive care unit of Kilis State Hospital since the attack, in which a janitor working at the school was killed.
Renewed clashes between IS, Al-Nusra Front on Lebanese-Syrian border
The Lebanese Daily Star reports that there have been renewed clashes between the IS group and Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate the Al-Nusra Front on the Lebanon-Syria border.
At least three militants were killed in the clashes, a Lebanese security source told The Daily Star.
Ahrar al-Sham, Islam Army are terrorists, can't be at Syria talks: Russian FM
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that groups like Ahrar al-Sham and the Islam Army (Jaish al-Islam) are terrorist groups and should not be involved in Syria peace talks.
"Our principled position is that including organizations that are terrorist groups is unacceptable. We will not shift from this," Zakharova said in response to a question about Moscow's position on the inclusion of Ahrar al-Sham and the Islam Army in the Geneva talks.
"It is time to ask how the other representatives of the international community, who consider themselves to be fighting against terrorism, consider the inclusion of terrorist groups," Zakharova added.
Moscow never said it fully approves of Assad's policies: Foreign Ministry
As the Syria peace talks kick off in Geneva without the Syrian opposition, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has come out with a rather confusing statement: she says Moscow has repeatedly pointed out that Damascus made mistakes and has never said that Damascus should fight the opposition.
Let's look at what Zakharova actually said:
"We never said that...we are completely against the Syrian opposition. This does not appear anywhere. We never said that even if the internal political life of Syria is completely dismantled, that we would totally support the policies of Assad, that we would recognize [Assad's policies] as completely correct. We never said that," Zakharova said.
Zakharova said Moscow had recognized that there were "mistakes, mistaken actions taken by Damascus" but did not say which actions Moscow considered to be mistakes.
"We never said that all of the opposition that opposes Damascus are terrorists, that you need to fight against them," Zakharova added.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has weighed in on the shaky start to the Syria peace talks with this comment: