DUSHANBE, 06.04.2017. /NIAT “Khovar”/. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura plans to suggest that the UN convene the sixth round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva in May, he told the donor conference on Syria in Brussels on Wednesday, TASS news Agency reports.
“Next, Security Council in a few days. I will be in New York and I will be consulting my Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and I will propose to the UN to reconvene a 6th round in May. The day and the approval is required and it will be my proposal”, de Mistura said, adding a day needed to be determined and later approved.
The UN special envoy for Syria hopes that Russia, Iran and Turkey, as guarantors of the Syria ceasefire, will improve the ceasefire in that country.
«But to do so we need Astana guarantors to restore and frankly improve the ceasefire. Hence my letter which I wrote to the three guarantors/Foreign Ministers a few days ago saying we need your engagement, re-engagement, stronger engagement and your message today in Brussels is helping in that direction,» he said.
The previous two rounds of Geneva talks, the fourth and fifth, took place thanks to agreements reached in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, according to de Mistura.
«So thanks to the Astana ceasefire, which needs to be reinstalled now and improved, this has allowed us to reconvene two rounds which were characterized by: participation and presence of all,» he said.
The fifth round of the intra-Syrian talks took place in Geneva on May 23-31. Afterwards, de Mistura said that the date for the next round of talks would be announced after consultations with the UN secretary general and Security Council.
The third conference on Syria ended in Astana on March 15. Delegations of Russia, Iran and Turkey, which had brokered a nationwide ceasefire in Syria, took part in the negotiations alongside experts from the United Nations, United States and Jordan. The next round of talks is scheduled for May 3-4.