U.N. Envoy Talks Aleppo Ceasefire Plan with Syria Rebels

U.N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura met on Monday with Syrian opposition members to discuss his plan to "freeze" fighting in the country's war-ravaged second city Aleppo, his spokeswoman said.

"The talks started today at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) and lasted for eight hours with representatives from the main armed and non-armed groups," Juliette Touma told Agence France-Presse.

"We met with them separately in Gaziantep," in southern Turkey, she said, adding that the U.N. delegation was four-strong, including de Mistura.

The U.N. envoy first unveiled his plan for a ceasefire in Aleppo in October, touting it as a way for desperately-needed aid to reach the ruined former economic hub.

Syria's government has said it would "study" the proposal.

On Monday, al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, said the government wanted the ceasefire to be limited to Aleppo city, while rebels want it to extend to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey.

Touma refused to comment on the report, saying "the plan is being discussed and we don't know for now what the boundaries will be."

Aleppo has been divided between regime control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

Government troops have now encircled much of the rebel-controlled east of the city, threatening to cut the opposition's remaining supply line to the north and besiege the neighborhoods under their control.

In Gaziantep, security measures were high as the meeting got underway.

Among the groups de Mistura met were rebels represented by Qais Sheikh, head of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), a coalition of several dozen moderate and Islamist opposition groups.

"All the brothers in Aleppo have accepted Qais Sheikh as their representative," Sobhi al-Rifai, head of the council's executive bureau, told AFP before the meeting.

"We are there for discussions and consultations, but we won't take the decisions here," he added.

Rifai declined to comment on whether the rebels would seek to extend the ceasefire zone.

"It's them (the U.N.) that proposed a ceasefire. We want to discuss the situation in all of Syria," he said.

Speaking after the talks, delegation head Sheikh told AFP that his team of seven had asked for time to consult after the discussions.

"We heard the detailed explanations of ambassador de Mistura. We posed questions on certain points and we asked for time to carry out consultations with our brothers in the opposition before giving our reply," he said.

"No deadline has been set. We must finish studying the details. We need to evaluate what our interests are and what the dangers are," he said.

Touma said De Mistura's deputy, Ramzi Ezzedine Ramzi, would head to Damascus at the end of this week for further discussions on the plan.