(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) NEW YORK, Nov 27 (KUNA) -- The UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura has expected that the civil conflict-torn Syria had a real chance to change the course for the first time in seven years and move towards a genuine political process.
"This crisis, one of the worst in the history of the United Nations, now has the potential to move towards a genuine political process," de Mistura said in briefing to the UN Security Council through videoconference on Monday.
"A clearer map of de-escalation, ceasefire and de-confliction arrangements has emerged, largely enabled by Astana and Amman." He stressed that the emergency of international consensus to seize the change to find a peaceful solution to the crisis.
"We must begin to stitch the process into concrete results, enabling Syrians to determine their own future freely," he said.
He noted that the united support of the international community, centred on this Council, would be vital if negotiations are to move forward in a concrete way.
De Mistura pointed out that Syrian government did not yet confirm its participation the new round Intra-Syrian talks in Geneva.
He disclosed that more than 200 civil society actors from Syria would be engaged in Geneva in a UN-led political process in Geneva over the next weeks as part of the intra-Syrian talks.
"I will engage a group of Syrian legal and constitutional experts and hear their advice and expertise. I will be engaging with civil society organizations with human rights expertise including detainees, abductees and missing persons; aided by technology we will be able to get in touch with refugee community leaders, in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey; and with civil society actors working in hard-to-reach and besieged areas.
"All that from Geneva. I count on their commitment to the political process, sense of citizenship, and real contact with the real problems on the ground and their own insights and ideas in order to strengthen our on-going mediation efforts," he indicated.
The UN envoy, however, expressed serious concern at the tremendous escalation of violence in Eastern Ghouta in these last weeks and on-going restrictions on humanitarian access to that area.
so-called Islamic State "is being defeated, neither side should turn their guns back towards de-escalation zones, and I therefore would like to urge, together with you, the Astana guarantors to address these challenges in order to avoid these problems for the de-escalation areas," he said. (end) asf.ibi
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