UN launches Syria peace talks in Geneva

Peace talks aimed at resolving Syria's five-year conflict began Friday at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva after a rocky start in which the main opposition group said it would not participate then changed course.

The talks are the first since two rounds of negotiations collapsed in 2014. Syria's conflict has killed more than 250,000 people, displaced millions and sent hundreds of thousands as refugees to Europe.

The first meeting was between the U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura and a government delegation headed by the country's ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja'afari. A U.N. spokesman said that de Mistura would later meet with other delegates, including civil society representatives.

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the main Syrian opposition delegation, initially said it would not participate in the talks without an end to the bombardment of civilians by Russian and Syrian government forces and a lifting of sieges in rebel-held areas. But after the talks started, the HNC changed tack and agreed to attend.

The meetings are part of a process outlined in a U.N. resolution last month that envisages an 18-month timetable for a political transition in Syria, including the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

The initial opposition boycott was a blow to the U.N.'s attempt to bring representatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and his opponents together for the first time in two years.

The HNC has been criticized for including the insurgent Army of Islam group, which controls wide areas near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and is considered a terrorist organization by the Syrian government and Russia.

But the HNC is also under intense pressure from the United States to participate in the talks.

Earlier in the day, U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi reflected the sense of chaos and confusion surrounding the beginning of peace negotiations when he told reporters at a briefing, "I don't have a time, I don't have the exact location, and I can't tell you anything about the delegation."

Prior to the opposition's announcement that it would attend the talks, Ahmad Ramadan, a senior official with the Syrian National Coalition, which is part of the HNC, had said the opposition would boycott the talks until it receives assurances on the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on lifting the sieges and halting bombardment of civilians in Syria.

"There cannot be any negotiations as long as the humanitarian issues have not been discussed or implemented," he said.

Ramadan said that de Mistura sent a letter on Thursday to the head of the HNC, Riad Hijab, which was deemed unsatisfactory. He and another opposition figure, Khaled Nasser, said the U.N. envoy wrote that the opposition's demands were reasonable and that humanitarian issues should be "above negotiations," but that he was powerless to implement them himself, adding that negotiations were the best way to force everyone to implement those resolutions.

Opposition figures from outside the HNC are already in Geneva, but they were invited as advisers. The HNC is supposed to be the main opposition group in the talks.

But a leading Syrian opposition figure who is not part of the HNC and is currently in Geneva hinted that his team will be part of the talks as a second opposition delegation.

"The presence of three delegations expresses the will of the (U.N.) Security Council who called for a delegation representing all parties of the opposition," former Syrian deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Jamil added that in their talks with the government the priority will be to allow aid into besieged areas and that all Syrians unite to "fight the terrorism represented by Nusra and Daesh." He was referring to Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria known as Jabhat Al-Nusra and using an Arabic acronym to refer to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

De Mistura said Thursday that Geneva peace talks are "an opportunity not to be missed."

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press