Turkey, Iran call for Syria ceasefire before Geneva 2 talks - report

"All our efforts are to end the conflict and for a ceasefire if possible, even before the Geneva 2 conference takes place," said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at a news conference in Tehran with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.

This as, the Syrian government said it will participate in UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending the country's civil war, but insisted that it is not going to the conference to hand over power.             

The United Nations on Monday announced that the long-delayed peace talks will begin Jan. 22 in Geneva. The meeting, which would be the first face-to-face talks between President Bashar Assad's government and its opponents since the Syrian war began, has raised hopes that a resolution to a conflict that activists say has killed more than 120,000 people could be within reach.              

But huge hurdles remain, including a decision on the full list of participants. The main Western-backed Syrian opposition group has said it is ready to attend, but wants the government to establish humanitarian corridors and release political prisoners as a confidence-building measure before it makes a final decision.              

In a statement Wednesday, Syria's Foreign Ministry confirmed the government will attend, saying Assad will send an official delegation to the Geneva conference. The ministry stressed that the representatives "will be going to Geneva not to hand over power to anyone" but to meet with those "who support a political solution for Syria's future."                  

The Syrian opposition and its Western supporters insist that Assad cannot be part of a transitional government.              

In a jab at Britain and France, the Foreign Ministry said that if Paris and London "insist on holding fast to these illusions" that there is no place for Assad in a transitional period, then "there is no need for them to attend Geneva 2."               

"Our people will not allow anyone to steal their right to decide their future and leadership and the main goal of the Geneva conference is to fulfill the interests of the Syrian people alone, and not those who shed their blood," the statement said.        

OPCW:

The chief of the global chemical weapons watchdog said member states of the organization "can and must" help in the high-stakes mission to rid Syria of its toxic agents stockpile.              
Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Ahmet Uzumcu said packing materials that will be used to transport weapons and chemicals out of Syria have already arrived in Lebanon and will be moved on to Damascus as the unprecedented mission gathers pace.             

The U.N.-OPCW mission aims to have all weaponized chemicals and Syria's most dangerous precursor chemicals out of the country by Dec. 31.              

In a statement released Wednesday, the OPCW said the plan to ship Syria's chemical arsenal out of the country "continues to pose challenges due to the security situation on the ground."

On the field:           

Forces loyal to Assad clashed on Wednesday with rebels trying to break a government blockade of opposition-held suburbs east of the capital, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said at least 17 rebels were killed along with an unknown of pro-government fighters.                    

There was no word on the clashes from Syrian state media.                   

The Observatory said the fighting was focused in the village of Marj in the eastern Ghouta area, and pitted rebels from two al-Qaeda-linked groups, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, against government troops and its Shiite allies from the Lebanese Hezbollah group and the Iraqi Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas brigade.