Geneva Meet Friday for Syria Humanitarian Access: UN

"The humanitarian group will meet today at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT)," Khawla Mattar, a spokeswoman for UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, told AFP in an email.

She added, though, that de Mistura, who had stayed behind in Munich after talks there overnight, would not be hosting the meeting.

At the Munich talks, world leaders agreed to a plan to “cease hostilities” in Syria within a week and dramatically ramp up humanitarian access in the war-ravaged country.

The International Syria Support Group (ISSG) created two task forces to achieve that goal.

The ISSG meeting, aimed at finding a solution to the nearly five years of conflict in Syria, started work in Munich on Thursday.

Ministers at Thursday's talks wrangled over three core issues: a gradual cessation of hostilities with a firm end date, humanitarian access to cities being besieged by both sides and a commitment that Syrian parties return to Geneva for political negotiations.

Syria’s main opposition group welcomed the plan reached at the meeting, saying it should prove to be effective before it joins the talks that are expected to resume later this month.

Diplomatic delegations from Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, the US as well as the Arab League, the European Union and the United Nations are attending the Munich talks.

A new report by the so-called Syrian Center for Policy Research (SCPR) has put the number of fatalities caused directly and indirectly by the foreign-backed militancy in Syria at 470,000.

The NGO says the figure is far higher than that of the UN - 260,000 - because the world body stopped collecting statistics 18 months ago.

The report also estimates that in all 11.5 percent of Syria’s population have been killed or injured since the crisis erupted in March 2011.