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UN Special Envoy for Syria to Take Part in Astana Talks 

29 November 2020, Switzerland, Geneva: Geir Otto Pedersen, United Nations special envoy for Syria, speaks during a press conference at the UN's European headquarters.
29 November 2020, Switzerland, Geneva: Geir Otto Pedersen, United Nations special envoy for Syria, speaks during a press conference at the UN's European headquarters.
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UN Special Envoy for Syria to Take Part in Astana Talks 

29 November 2020, Switzerland, Geneva: Geir Otto Pedersen, United Nations special envoy for Syria, speaks during a press conference at the UN's European headquarters.
29 November 2020, Switzerland, Geneva: Geir Otto Pedersen, United Nations special envoy for Syria, speaks during a press conference at the UN's European headquarters.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Geir Otto Pedersen, will take part in talks on Syria's future in Astana, Russia's TASS state news agency reported on Tuesday, quoting Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov.

Deputy foreign ministers from Russia, Syria, Türkiye and Iran will meet in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, on Wednesday.

Bogdanov also said that representatives from the observer countries that are Syria's neighbors - Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan - will also participate in the talks.

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Sudan's RSF Agrees with UN on Steps to Ease Aid Delivery

Sudanese farmers plow a field on the outskirts of Sudan's eastern city of Gedaref on July 18, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese farmers plow a field on the outskirts of Sudan's eastern city of Gedaref on July 18, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
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Sudan's RSF Agrees with UN on Steps to Ease Aid Delivery

Sudanese farmers plow a field on the outskirts of Sudan's eastern city of Gedaref on July 18, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Sudanese farmers plow a field on the outskirts of Sudan's eastern city of Gedaref on July 18, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces agreed with the United Nations on some steps to ease aid delivery in areas under its control, a member of the RSF told Reuters on Thursday.

The Sudanese army has not reached any understandings on aid delivers with the RSF, he added. It is unclear if these steps could be implemented without the army's participation.

Meanwhile, a key supply route into Sudan's Darfur region, deemed at risk of famine by a global monitor, has been cut off due to heavy rains, a World Food Program official told Reuters on Thursday.
The UN agency has described Sudan as the world's biggest hunger crisis, with the western Darfur region most at risk as Sudan's 15-month civil war that has displaced millions and sparked ethnic violence grinds on.
WFP's Country Director Eddie Rowe said thousands of tons of aid are stranded at the Tina crossing on the Chad border, prompting the body to reopen talks with the army-aligned government to open an alternative, all-weather crossing further south called Adre.
"You have these huge rivers. As I speak now, our convoy, which is supposed to move over 2000 metric tons is stranded," he told Reuters from Port Sudan. Asked on the status of the talks that resumed this week, he said: "It's 50/50.”
WFP is now seeking clearances to move a large 70-truck convoy via a little-used, over 1000 kilometer route from Port Sudan to Darfur which Rowe said will involve crossing the battle lines of both the Sudan Armed Forces, the Rapid Support Forces and various militias.
He added that this mostly desert route has worked in the past but outside of the rainy season and that the last journey took weeks and was "fraught with a lot of challenges.”
In a separate interview, Mona Rishmawi, a member of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan, told Reuters that she had met Darfur refugees in Chad who told her stories of escaping with virtually no water and eating grass along the route. "There's no doubt that people are starving," she said.