Syria talks resume in Geneva with rivals still deadlocked over Assad`s future
(The Guardian Russia)

With the US lacking a strategy, Turkey taking steps away and Bashar al-Assad going nowhere, UN talks resume with little prospect of a breakthroughWhen the UN´s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, reconvenes the Syrian peace talks in the Palais Des Nations in Geneva on Thursday, he will be facing a totally recast political landscape since he brought the warring sides together in the same city last year.Back in February 2016 there was a degree of quiet optimism in western diplomatic circles that Russia felt it had secured its chief strategic goal. By intervening militarily in September 2015 to save President Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin had made himself indisputably the key player in Syria and, as a result, might be ready to deliver a conciliatory Syrian government delegation to the talks. Continue reading...