The foreign ministers of five western and EU countries adopted the opposition’s approach and warned Bashar Al-Assad’s regime against trying to hinder upcoming negotiations. They did this during their meeting in Paris yesterday where they discussed the Syrian crisis on the eve of the resumption of talks in Geneva.

The foreign ministers of France, Britain, Germany, Italy and the United States and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini condemned the Syrian regime’s latest positions and called on its allies, Russia and Iran, to convince it to respect the commitments that it made in Vienna or as part of UN Resolution 2254. The American Secretary of State John Kerry and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault warned the Syrian regime and its allies against exploiting the ceasefire agreement to achieve their goals.

On the ground, an attack carried out by the Al-Nusra Front on the 13th Division group which is an affiliation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Maarrat Al-Nu’man, Idlib on Saturday has caused fears that the extremist organisation will announce that Idlib is one of its emirates in the same way that ISIS regards Raqqa in eastern Syria.