Moscow Hopes De Mistura To Bring Progress To Syria Settlement Until End Of Envoy's Mandate

Moscow Hopes De Mistura to Bring Progress to Syria Settlement Until End of Envoy's Mandate

Russia hopes that UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will be able to reach progress in Syrian settlement process until his mandate expires in late November, Russia's envoy to the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG), Gennady Gatilov, told Sputnik in an interview.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2018) Russia hopes that UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will be able to reach progress in Syrian settlement process until his mandate expires in late November, Russia's envoy to the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG), Gennady Gatilov, told Sputnik in an interview.

"In general, I would like to note that Staffan de Mistura has carried out rather complicated work at the post of the UN special envoy [for Syria], which required his considerable efforts. We hope that the last coming month of his mandate of the special envoy of the UN secretary-general for Syria will be helpful for solving the problems that restrain the Syrian settlement progress," Gatilov said.

De Mistura announced in October that he would leave the post in the end of November due to personal reasons. The diplomat has been working as the special envoy for the crisis-torn country since 2014.

Over the recent months de Mistura has taken a lot of efforts aimed at coordinating with the conflicting sides the formation of a Syrian constitutional committee � the body that is tasked with rewriting the Syrian main law. The creation of the Syrian constitutional committee was agreed upon during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in the Russian resort city of Sochi in late January.

Syria has been devastated by years of violent civil war that has prompted millions to flee hostilities to other locations within the country or abroad. The international community has taken efforts to settle the conflict by conducting political settlement talks in Geneva. Astana-format talks have been an important part of international efforts aimed to settle the conflict in Syria. It is during the Astana talks that the memorandum on the creation of de-escalation zones in Syria was signed in 2017.