{"id":13959,"date":"2018-09-05T16:22:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T16:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13959"},"modified":"2018-09-05T16:22:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T16:22:52","slug":"un-envoy-to-yemen-says-talks-will-focus-on-confidence-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13959","title":{"rendered":"UN envoy to Yemen says talks will focus on ‘confidence building’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: International calls mounted Wednesday to avoid a \u201cmassacre\u201d by regime forces in Syria\u2019s last rebel-held province of Idlib, two days before a summit between key powers backing the government and opposition.
Troops have been massing on the edges of the northwestern province on the border with Turkey for weeks, raising fears of a humanitarian disaster on a scale not yet seen in Syria\u2019s seven-year conflict.
Turkey\u2019s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday was the latest to warn Damascus against an all-out offensive against a region the United Nations says is home to nearly three million people.
\u201cGod forbid, a serious massacre could take place if there is a rain of missiles there,\u201d said Erdogan, whose country has supported Syrian rebels.
He spoke two days before he is set to meet the presidents of regime backers Iran and Russia in Tehran to discuss the future of the province.
Global concern has risen in recent days over a threatened regime assault to oust rebels and extremists from Idlib province and surrounding areas, the last major chunk of Syria still in opposition hands.
On Tuesday, the UN peace envoy for Syria urged Erdogan and Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin to speak on the phone before Friday\u2019s summit.
Staffan de Mistura called for efforts \u201cto avoid that the last probably major battle of the Syrian territorial conflict… ends in a bloodbath.\u201d
More than half of Idlib is controlled by militants from Syria\u2019s former Al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), while much of the rest is held by rebels backed by Turkey.
The regime holds a small southeastern sliver.
The United Nations and aid groups have warned a military campaign could spark one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in a war that has already killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions.
Some 2.9 million people live in Idlib and surrounding areas, among them one million children.
Many are rebels and civilians who were bussed out of their hometowns in other parts of the country that have come back under regime control.
Late Monday, US President Donald Trump also warned against a full scale assault on Idlib, which he said could trigger a \u201chuman tragedy.\u201d
Turkey, Russia and Iran last year designated Idlib a so-called \u201cde-escalation zone,\u201d but that deal did not cover former Al-Qaeda affiliate HTS.
On Tuesday, Russian warplanes resumed air strikes on Idlib after a 22-day pause.
Air raids across the province killed at least 13 civilians, including six children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Moscow said four of its jets \u201cinflicted strikes by high-precision weapons\u201d on targets belonging to HTS.
On Wednesday, regime artillery and rocket fire targeted several areas of the province including the HTS-held town of Jisr Al-Shughur, the Britain-based war monitor said.
President Bashar Assad\u2019s regime has retaken large swathes of the country from rebels and jihadists since Russia intervened militarily on its side in 2015.
Russian planes are based at the Hmeimim air base in Latakia province, a coastal regime stronghold adjacent to Idlib.
Moscow has accused armed groups in Idlib of sending weaponized drones to attack Hmeimim.
On Wednesday, Putin\u2019s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Idlib was the \u201csubject of increased concern and worry\u201d and was the focus of a flurry of diplomacy.
Just a day earlier, Peskov had slammed Idlib as a \u201cpocket of terrorism,\u201d and said \u201cSyrian armed forces are getting ready to solve this problem.\u201d
Friday\u2019s summit in Tehran between key power brokers Erdogan, Putin and Iran\u2019s President Hassan Rouhani is expected to determine the scope and timing of any assault on Idlib.
A UN Security Council meeting is also set to be held the same day to discuss Idlib, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has said.
She warned on Tuesday against the use of any chemical weapons in Idlib, after the White House pledged to \u201crespond swiftly and appropriately\u201d to any such attack.
Since the start of the conflict in 2011, Assad\u2019s regime has repeatedly been accused of using chemical weapons, including in its battle this year to retake the former rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
Rescue workers accused regime forces of using \u201cpoisonous chlorine gas\u201d in the town of Douma in April that killed more than 40 people.
In response, the United States, France and Britain unleashed missiles on three regime chemical weapons facilities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: International calls mounted Wednesday to avoid a \u201cmassacre\u201d by regime forces in Syria\u2019s last rebel-held province of Idlib, two days before a summit between key powers backing the government and opposition.Troops have been massing on the edges of the northwestern province on the border with Turkey for weeks, raising fears of a humanitarian disaster…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}