UPDATE - UN: No Syria talks within 2-3 weeks

By Fatih Erel

GENEVA (AA) - The UN’s Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura said Thursday there would be no new round of Syria peace talks in Geneva within at least "two/three weeks".

After briefing the UN Security Council on the current situation in Syria, de Mistura said in a statement on Thursday night that they "need to see progress on the ground – particularly in reference to the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access", before the new round of talks.

"He briefed [the Council] on his intention to start the next round of talks as soon as feasible but certainly not within the next two/three weeks," the statement said.

According to the UN, nearly one million people in Syria's besieged and hard-to-reach areas urgently need aid.

"We are still failing the people of Daraya, as we are failing the people of Muaddamiyah and al-Waer. Those are indeed three places I would say that the situation is still horrendously critical. Children are so malnourished in these places that they will be dying if we are not able to reach them," de Mistura's advisor Jan Egeland told reporters earlier on Thursday.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to the UN, which stopped counting two years ago.