UN Envoy For Syria Peace To Step Down

Veteran diplomat Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday he will step down as UN envoy to Syria next month, ending his four-year tenure in the tough role.

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Oct, 2018 ) :Veteran diplomat Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday he will step down as UN envoy to Syria next month, ending his four-year tenure in the tough role.

The 71-year-old Italian-Swedish diplomat told the UN Security Council this was for personal reasons, but will continue in his tasks as the UN secretary general's - Antonio Guterres - special envoy for Syria until the end of November.

"I am not laying down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate," De Mistura said.

He said he would travel to Damascus next week to push for the creation of a committee to agree on a post-war constitution for Syria.

The UN-led effort to set up the constitutional committee - that will include regime officials, opposition members and members of Syria's civil society- has been resisted by Damascus.

In 2014, De Mistura became the third UN diplomat tasked with ending the Syria war which erupted in 2011.

Since then, around 500,000 people have lost their lives in the war - the vast majority civilians killed by regime and Russian bombing or shelling - while more than half of Syria's population have been made homeless.

De Mistura's predecessor, Lakhdar Brahimi, resigned after becoming frustrated by the failure of Geneva peace talks.