PARIS: As negotiators meet in Vienna yesterday for two days of UN-backed talks over ending Syria’s bloody war, Western diplomats are ratcheting up the pressure for a solution—even as Russia pushes its own round of peace talks, reports AFP. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that the Vienna meeting, after several failed rounds held in Geneva, was the “last hope” for reaching a political solution. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has been waging a parallel diplomatic offensive, with a new round of talks at the Black Sea resort of Sochi set for January 30.

Ahead of the Vienna meeting, officials from the United States, France and Britain, along with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, gathered in Paris on Tuesday to sharpen their response to the Russian initiative. “The United Nations has to be put back in the middle of the game. There is no question of letting the Geneva process be hijacked, diverted or bypassed,” a French diplomatic source said.

Meanwhile, tensions between Ankara and Washington over the Turkish army’s operation in Syria escalated further yesterday as Turkey accused the White House of misrepresenting a phone call between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump.

The assault by Turkish troops against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria has seen Washington’s fellow NATO member Ankara attacking a US-allied force, even raising fears of military confrontation between the two Alliance powers. Turkey says it has made gradual progress in the offensive against Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia but has refused to give any time limit for the campaign.

After the Turkish and US presidents spoke late on Wednesday, the White House said Trump had urged Turkey to “to de-escalate, limit its military actions”, expressing concern that the assault could harm the fight against jihadists.