US and Russia To Meet In Geneva To Revive The Stalled UN-brokered Syria Peace Talks

Senior diplomats from the US and Russia are set to meet Tuesday in Geneva to revive the stalled UN-brokered Syria peace talks, spokespeople of both countries confirmed in the Swiss UN city.
Moscow and Washington have been instrumental for these talks, as Russia backs the Syrian government while the US supports rebel groups.
"We have a constructive attitude for the work with our partners and hope that we'll be able to advance as regards the intra-Syrian negotiations process," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said. 
According to the report, Gatilov is scheduled to meet in Geneva with Michael Ratney, the US special envoy for Syria.
A Russian embassy spokeswoman in Geneva revealed  that the talks would focus on the fight against terrorism and on political transition in Syria.
Her US counterpart said his delegation wants Russia to pressure the Syrian government to allow humanitarian aid to reach besieged areas.
Another aim was to resume the talks involving the Syrian government and the armed opposition in early August, he added.
Meanwhile, UN humanitarian affairs chief Stephen O'Brien warned the UN Security Council of the rapidly deteriorating situation in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo where fighting has continued in both rebel-held and government-held areas.
Conditions are especially grave in Aleppo's rebel-held eastern sector, where government forces have besieged an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people and cut off the last remaining access route, known as Castello Road, O'Brien said.
He called for establishing a weekly 48-hour humanitarian pause to allow the UN to transport aid into the rebel-held area.
On Sunday the head of the Aleppo Blood Bank, Abdel-Razik Darwish, told dpa that five hospitals in the east of the city had been put out of action by airstrikes, leaving only two still functioning.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday called the situation in Aleppo "gut-wrenching."
"The targeting of medical facilities that treat civilians is something that's impossible to justify," he said, noting a strategy by Bashar al-Assad's regime to target civilians.
French UN ambassador Francois Delattre called Aleppo a "martyr town" and warned it "could become the graveyard" of the peace process backed by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), a 17-nation group seeking a political solution to the conflict.
"The ISSG mechanism, the Geneva task forces, the actions of [UN Syria envoy] Staffan de Mistura, which we support, and the appeals for bringing together the opposition - all this will achieve nothing because of the Aleppo siege," Delattre said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that 16 people had been killed in airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo city and the nearby town of Atarib on Monday.
Another three people were killed in rebel fire on the regime-held west of Aleppo, the monitoring group said.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it is ready to resume talks without preconditions.
The negotiations collapsed in April, when the opposition delegation walked out, citing attacks by regime forces and its Russian ally, as well as blocked aid shipments.
The Syrian conflict began in 2011 with peaceful protests against the Assad regime. It developed into a war that has claimed more than 250,000 lives and has forced more than 11 million Syrians to flee.    REUTERS