{Deal reached after damaged water infrastructure in Wadi Barada left 5.5 million in Damascus area enduring shortages.}<\/p>\n
Syrian government workers have entered a formerly rebel-held area near Damascus to begin restoring water to the capital after weeks of shortages, state media reported.<\/p>\n
The engineers entered the facilities at Ain al-Fija in the opposition-held Wadi Barada area by agreement with the rebels, the governor said on Ikhbariya channel on Friday.<\/p>\n
“We have halted military operations in Ain al-Fija and started reconciliation with the militas there,” said provincial governor Alaa Ibrahim, speaking to reporters from an area near the spring.<\/p>\n
“God willing, the pipe will be fixed within three days … rapid measures will be taken to get water to Damascus tomorrow,” he added.<\/p>\n
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, confirmed that repair crews had reached the Ain al-Fija spring and that the Syrian flag had been raised in the area.<\/p>\n
The reported deal comes after weeks of fighting in the region, 15 kilometres northwest of Damascus, that has threatened a fragile truce in place since December 30.<\/p>\n
The fighting has damaged water infrastructure and left some 5.5 million people in the capital and its suburbs facing water shortages, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Friday, the army had advanced into Wadi Barada, taking the village of Baseema under heavy fire, the Syrian Observatory said.
\nPeace talks<\/p>\n
The truce brokered by government ally Russia and rebel-backer Turkey is intended to pave the way for new peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, which Russia confirmed on Wednesday were scheduled for January 23.<\/p>\n
“At this time there is no indication that the meeting will be postponed. The date of January 23 is set,” a source in the foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n
He added that work was under way to compile a list of participants.<\/p>\n
A Russian diplomatic source said on Wednesday that the talks would be held between the government and rebels only, with the political opposition excluded for the first time.<\/p>\n
But Turkey and the rebels have warned that the ongoing fighting in Wadi Barada could jeopardise the talks in Astana.<\/p>\n
And while the truce has brought quiet to large parts of Syria, sporadic violence has continued elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Syria’s conflict started as a largely unarmed uprising against President Assad’s rule in March 2011, but it has since morphed into a full-scale civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than half of the country’s prewar population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Deal reached after damaged water infrastructure in Wadi Barada left 5.5 million in Damascus area enduring shortages.} Syrian government workers have entered a formerly rebel-held area near Damascus to begin restoring water to the capital after weeks of shortages, state media reported. The engineers entered the facilities at Ain al-Fija in the opposition-held Wadi Barada […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31807"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31807"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}