Effort needed to give Syrians respite from carnage

IT is good that the US and Russia - together with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran - have begun talks towards a truce in Syria. After the meeting on Saturday, Russia revealed that "certain ideas" were discussed and more meetings will be held soon.

Two weeks ago, the US broke off talks amid rising tension over Russian and Syrian air strikes on Aleppo. Washington then also cancelled plans to provide information about its own operations to Moscow. In seeming retaliation, Russian President Vladimir Putin upped the ante and suspended nuclear cooperation - to process about 30 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium, enough to make 17,000 nuclear weapons - which was signed in 2000. To reverse the suspension, Mr Putin demanded that the US lift all anti-Russian sanctions imposed after the Crimea annexation, compensate Russia for sanctions-related losses and reduce the US military presence in Eastern Europe to pre-2000 levels.

Obviously, that is not going to happen. Indeed, Mr Putin's response seems to have been a calculated move to rid Moscow of all entangling treaties with the US, perhaps to assert Russian power more boldly. No doubt, the global geo-strategic game will be played out in the years ahead. None of this will be of any comfort to the innocent civilians trapped in Aleppo, once Syria's largest city. About 250,000 people are under siege as air strikes by Russian and Syrian warplanes devastate what is left of a city that the government of Bashar al-Assad wants to retake from the insurgents.