The United Nations plans to hold new peace talks for Syria in the city of Vienna on 25 and 26 January next. The Russian ambassador to the United Nations earlier this month expressed hope that the UN-led talks on Syria would "reinvigorate" the peace process ahead of the planned Sochi talks on the Black Sea.
The last peace talk dates back to mid-December held in Geneva and ended without any significant progress.
Meanwhile, according to reports from local sources and pan-Arab media, the Syrian government forces, supported by Iran and Russia, are advancing towards the Abu Dhuhur military airport, in the northwestern region of Idlib controlled by armed opponents and Qaidists.
After a slowdown in the offensive, which began at the beginning of the month and which had brought loyalist troops to the southern side of the airport in the hands of the insurgents, intense attacks from the northern side of the front have resumed in the last few hours.
The government troops are a few kilometers from Abu Dhuhur airport, now the only military airfield in the hands of the armed opposition and, in that area, supported in part by Turkey. According to the estimates of the UN and various international humanitarian organizations, about 100 thousand civilians have been displaced from the Abu Dhuhur region, the surrounding districts and the neighboring region of Hama in the last weeks of conflict between insurgents and government forces.