Syrian official says Geneva peace talks Nov. 23 24

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Syria's deputy prime minister said an international conference to discuss a political solution to his country's conflict is planned for Nov. 23-24.

Qadri Jamil made the announcement during a visit to Moscow on Thursday, according to Russian media outlets.

The main Western-backed Syrian opposition group has not decided whether to attend, and many rebel fighters inside Syria flatly reject negotiating with President Bashar Assad's regime.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that efforts are intensifying to try to hold the Geneva meeting in mid-November.

On another note, a Canadian national working for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights has been released, Syrian state television reported on Thursday, eight months after he was reported to have been captured by rebel fighters.

The television channel said the Foreign Ministry handed him over to a United Nations representative in Syria.

Later in the day, State-run Syrian television said that top army Gen. Jameh Jameh was killed while on duty in eastern Syria.

It said Jameh, who was the head of the military intelligence directorate in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, was killed by rebels in the provincial capital that carries the same name.

OPCW inspectors:

Car bombs and mortars have exploded close to the hotel where chemical weapons inspectors are staying in the Syrian capital in recent days, but officials said Thursday there is no way of knowing if the team is being deliberately targeted.

Malik Ellahi, a senior official at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told a small group of reporters at the organization's headquarters the latest "mortar incident" happened late Wednesday close to the team's Damascus hotel. That followed car bombs and mortars detonating close to the hotel on Oct. 12.

"In terms of the security situation there are always concerns but the team so far has, with the cooperation of the Syrian authorities, managed to conduct its work unimpeded," Ellahi said.

The OPCW won Nobel Peace Prize last week for its work in attempting to rid the world of chemical weapons.

It is working with the United Nations in an unprecedented disarmament mission in Syria, attempting to destroy the country's chemical arsenal by mid-2014 the first time its inspectors have been sent into the heart of a civil war.

Ellahi said the team is approaching the halfway mark of the first phase of its mission to verify Syria's initial declaration of its weapons program and render production and chemical mixing facilities inoperable by Nov. 1. The team already has visited 11 locations since it started work Oct. 1 and carried out destruction work at six of them.


AP/REUTERS

Syrian official says Geneva peace talks Nov. 23-24