A group monitoring the Syrian war said on Thursday negotiations had failed to produce a ceasefire between government forces and rebels in the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it did not know the reasons for the failure of the talks. They had been going on for a number of days and were mediated by "an international party", it said.The Observatory had reported on Wednesday a 15-day ceasefire in the Eastern Ghouta was due to be announced soon. The rebel-held area is situated to the east of Damascus. It is a base of operations for the powerful insurgent group Jaish al-Islam, which is an enemy of DAESH.The area, which was targeted with chemical weapons in 2013, is hit regularly by government air strikes. A local truce brokered with help from Iran and Turkey managed to halt fighting in two other areas of western Syria earlier this year - the town of Zabadani at the border with Lebanon, and in two villages in the northwestern province of Idlib.