UN envoy says seeking 'door-opener' for Syria peace

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The new UN envoy for Syria said Friday he was striving to create a committee on drafting a post-war constitution that could hopefully open the way to a peaceful end to the conflict.

Norwegian Geir Pedersen, who last month became the fourth United Nations negotiator working to resolve almost eight years of bloodshed in Syria, said he was continuing his predecessor Staffan de Mistura's work to set up a constitutional committee.

"I see the constitutional committee as the potential door-opener for the political process," Pedersen told reporters in Geneva, pointing to a UN resolution adopted in 2015 calling for the creation of a new Syrian constitution followed by UN-supervised elections.

De Mistura ended his four-year tenure late last year with an abortive push to form a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution after seeing repeated rounds of talks in Geneva come to nothing.

Pedersen, a career diplomat, said he hoped he would be able to overcome the obstacles to creating the committee.

"It is obviously my hope that we will be able to as soon as possible have the constitutional committee meet in Geneva," he said.

He did not say when such a meeting could take place, but the hope was that it would trigger "some serious discussions that could be the door-opener to a political process that will lead to a negotiated outcome of the conflict."

Syria's war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since the conflict began in 2011.

The government has made a military comeback with Russian military support since 2015, and now holds almost two-thirds of Syria.

Pedersen acknowledged that he was facing a daunting task of rekindling moribund peace talks and succeeding where his three predecessors failed.

Since the start of January, he has been traveling extensively to meet with the Syrian government, the opposition and others to try to move the process forward.

In Damascus, he said he was "very positively received" and had in-depth talks on the nature of his mandate.

"I have stressed that confidence building is needed," he said, calling for ceasefires and more prisoner releases from both sides in the hope this could move things forward.

"The aim is to have a negotiated outcome."

Source(s): AFP