Main Syria Opposition goes to Geneva for thorny peace talks

Representatives of Syria’s largest mainstream Opposition umbrella group were set to arrive in Geneva on Saturday evening, allaying fears they would boycott UN-brokered talks aimed at ending the country’s brutal civil war.

A delegation from the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) was preparing to leave Riyadh, spokesperson Monzer Makhous said.

“We will be arriving this evening in Geneva,” he said, adding that HNC chief Riad Hijab would join the delegation later in the Swiss city.

The announcement came after the group late Friday grudgingly relented to Western and Saudi pressure to attend the talks, the biggest push to date to chart a way out of Syria’s nearly five-year war.

The HNC representatives will be arriving a day late for the UN-backed talks.

On Friday, a 16-member delegation representing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime held nearly three hours of preliminary talks with UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura.

HNC had long refused to join the talks without an end to bombardments of civilians and an agreement on relief reaching hundreds of thousands of people stuck in besieged Syrian towns.

But their about-face does not mean the situation on the ground has improved.

On Saturday, the Doctors Without Borders charity said at least 16 more people have starved to death in the besieged town of Madaya since an aid convoy entered earlier in January, bringing the number who have died of starvation there since December to 46.

Several dozen more residents of the town are in “danger of death” because of severe malnutrition, the group known by its French acronym MSF warned.

“This is the 21st century and we have children who are dying from hunger,” HNC’s Hind Kabawat said.