Agree to let aid into Syria

Newsday: As international talks in search of a cease-fire and regime change in Syria get under way in Switzerland, there is a humanitarian disaster unfolding that must take top priority.

Photos of the corpses of more than 11,000 people reportedly starved, tortured and executed in jails controlled by President Bashar Assad have been smuggled out of Syria by a police photographer. And fighting in the civil war has trapped tens of thousands of civilians without food, water and medicine now that Assad has unconscionably embraced starvation as a weapon of war.

The United States and its allies should demand a verifiable end to the systematic killing and press the Assad regime for a show of good faith: an agreement to allow convoys carrying humanitarian aid to reach suffering civilians.

About 250,000 civilians are isolated in rebel-held areas besieged by government forces, out of reach of aid deliveries, according to the United Nations. Millions more are in areas that are barely accessible.