While acknowledging that it is still too early to get anywhere near a comprehensive peace deal, negotiators scored a small breakthrough in the talks to end the Syrian Civil War:  Damascus will allow women and children to leave the embattled, rebel-held area of Homs.

“What we have been told by the government side is that women and children in the besieged area in the old city are welcome to leave immediately.  And the other civilians are also welcome to leave but the government needs a list of their names first,” said United Nations negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi, who brushed off reporters’ concerns that providing such a list might result in revenge attacks against the people on it later on.

“We have been trying our best to reach all areas of Syria and all humanitarian organizations have been writing positive reports on what the Syrian government is doing on the ground,” claimed Bouthaina Shabaan, President Bashar al-Assad's media and political adviser, on the third day of talks in Geneva.  Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad alleged that it was the armed rebel groups who were preventing the women and children from leaving. 

The Syrian National Coalition spent much of the weekend pushing for aid access to Homs.  Several districts in the city have been besieged for more than a year and a half.  Residents face a severe shortage of food and medical supplies.