Syrian rebels meet in Kazakhstan ahead of talks

ASTANA — Syrian rebel delegates huddled in Kazakhstan yesterday ahead of talks with government representatives scheduled to begin Monday, the first such negotiations between the two sides in a year. At the top of the agenda is an effort to consolidate a fragile cease-fire agreement reached last month and ease humanitarian suffering in the war-ravaged country.

The talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana, are sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey, and are the latest attempt to forge a political settlement to end a war that has by most estimates killed more than 400,000 people and displaced more than half the country's population.

The UN's Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, is participating in the talks, which are to be followed by more political talks in February in Geneva. The new US administration is not, because of the "immediate demands of the transition," the State Department said Saturday.

The opposition delegation, which arrived in Astana on yesterday, is made up of about a dozen rebel figures led by Mohammad Alloush, of the powerful Army of Islam rebel group. The Syrian government is sending its UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, and military delegates.

At the top of the agenda is an effort to consolidate a cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey last month. The truce reached on Dec. 30, which excludes extremist groups such as the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, has reduced overall violence in the country but fighting continues on multiple fronts.

Yehia al-Aridi, a spokesman for the opposition in Astana, said the rebel factions are there to talk about the cease-fire and other humanitarian issues, including breaking the sieges and stopping forced displacement by the government.

He suggested that any talk about Syrian President Bashar Assad's future is off the table for now, and would be discussed in Geneva at a later stage.