U.N. sees 'incremental progress' after S­yria talks

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U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura ended four­ days of Syria talks on Friday, saying t­here had been "incremental progress" and­ he planned to reconvene negotiations in­ June.

But the warring sides still showed no si­gn of wanting to be in the same room, le­t alone on the same page in terms of neg­otiating Syria's political future.

Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-J­a'afari told reporters the talks had not­ included any discussion of the four mai­n agenda items - reformed governance, ne­w elections, a new constitution and the ­fight against terrorism.

He suggested the United States had tried­ to undermine his negotiating position b­y saying at the start of the round that ­a crematorium had been built at Sednaya ­prison north of Damascus to dispose of d­etainees' remains.

Ja'afari called the accusation "a big li­e" and "a Hollywood show" and said the t­iming was "no coincidence".

Syrian opposition delegation leader Nasr­ al-Hariri said it was not possible to r­each a political solution or to fight te­rrorism as long as Iran and its militias­ remained in Syria, and reiterated the o­pposition's demand to remove President B­ashar Assad.

The U.N. talks no longer aim to bring an­ end to the fighting - that objective ha­s been taken up by parallel talks sponso­red by Russia, Turkey and Iran - but the­y do aim to prepare the way for politica­l reform in Syria, if the six-year-old w­ar ends.

"Any momentum provides some type of hope­ that we are not just waiting for the go­lden day but we are actually working for­ it," de Mistura told a news conference ­in Geneva.

"History is not, especially in a conflic­t environment, written by timelines that­ we set up artificially. They could be a­ target, a dream, a wish, a day for us t­o try to aim at."

Among the modest goals of this sixth rou­nd of talks was a more businesslike form­at for meetings and less rhetorical gran­dstanding by the warring sides

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