Egyptian FM to attend Syria talks in New York

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will attend Syria talks in New York on Friday which aim at reaching a political consensus to end the ongoing conflict.

The Egyptian minister is also set to hold bilateral meetings with other ministers on the sidelines of the Syrian international meeting, MENA agency reported.  

The New York meeting is the third gather of the International Syria Support Group, which includes the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. Members of the group have agreed on a plan including formal talks between the government and opposition from 1 January.

To achieve that timeline, Saudi Arabia hosted a conference last week to unite Syria's divided rebel and opposition groups, who are trying to forge a common platform to be able to negotiate with the Syrian government.

They have agreed to set up a joint body to prepare for future talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, which world powers proposed at a meeting in Vienna last month.

A statement at the end of the two-day conference said Assad should leave power at the start of a transitional period, and called for an all-inclusive, democratic civic state.

Egypt has welcomed the talks held in Saudi Arabia.

Cairo hosted two meetings with Syrian opposition groups in 2015, and Shoukry has also held talks with opposition delegations in an attempt to find a political solution to the conflict that would ensure the unity and independence of the country.

Cairo has not called for Bashar al-Assad to leave office, and has reiterated its belief that a political solution is necessary to end the four-year conflict.

Egypt currently hosts a number of Syrian refugees, more than 140,000 of whom are registered with the UN refugee agency in Cairo.

Syria's civil war, which started with opposition protests against Assad in 2011, has killed 250,000 people and displaced 12 million.