Appointment Of De Mistura's Successor Unlikely To Escape Politicization - Naumkin

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Appointment of De Mistura's Successor Unlikely to Escape Politicization - Naumkin

It is unlikely that the appointment of a successor to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will be completely depoliticized, Vitaly Naumkin, the academic director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies, told Sputnik on Thursday, noting that the candidate should be agreed upon by all the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including Russia.

SOCHI (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2018) It is unlikely that the appointment of a successor to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will be completely depoliticized, Vitaly Naumkin, the academic director of the Russian academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies, told Sputnik on Thursday, noting that the candidate should be agreed upon by all the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including Russia.

De Mistura said on Wednesday that he would quit in the last week of November due to personal reasons. Earlier on Thursday, Andrey Kortunov, the director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, told Sputnik that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed the necessity to prevent the politicization of the appointment of de Mistura's successor in his address at a closed meeting with Valdai Club participants in Sochi.

"There are several candidacies, as far as I know, and the appointment will not be completely depoliticized.

[A successor] would be picked from professionals with extensive experience in peacekeeping work, I know some of them and I would prefer not to name them ... The appointment of a UN envoy is agreed upon by the UN Security Council permanent members, including Russia, that is why it should be a candidate who pleases everyone," Naumkin said.

Before stepping down, the current UN special envoy for Syria is expected to visit Damascus on October 26 to discuss the Syrian Constitutional Committee. Earlier in the week, Naumkin said that he allowed for the possibility that de Mistura might convene the Syrian Constitutional Commission before his resignation.

The decision to set up the Syrian constitutional committee was agreed upon in January, during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in the Russian resort city of Sochi. Currently, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura is working on creating a special committee in Geneva that will be tasked with preparing a constitutional reform.