The UN struggled on Friday to get a new round of Syrian peace talks off the ground, but with few signs of progress as dozens more civilian deaths underlined the scale of the challenge. The UN's Syria envoy, who brought rival regime and opposition delegates symbolically together late Thursday, held separate meetings with them Friday to hammer out the talks' format. "We discussed issues relating to the format of the talks exclusively," said Syrian regime delegation chief Bashar al-Jaafari after meeting de Mistura.



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