UN Envoy Urges Damascus to Rejoin Geneva Talks
Sudan Events – Agencies
The United Nations special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen urged Damascus Sunday to rejoin talks to revise the country’s constitution, warning that political dialogue was going “in the wrong direction.”
Syria’s war, which began 13 years ago with the repression of pro-democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and ravaged the country’s economy, infrastructure and industry.
Pedersen has been trying to make progress with a so-called constitutional committee for Syria to rewrite or amend the war-torn country’s constitution since October 2019, with little success.
The Geneva talks halted in 2022 after Damascus ally Moscow had objected to the meeting being held in Switzerland, questioning its neutrality after it imposed sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Pedersen said last month that Moscow and Damascus had rejected holding a ninth round of talks in Geneva, the established location for the talks, and that the parties had failed to agree on an alternate venue.
Endless rounds of UN-backed peace talks failed to stop the Syrian conflict and in recent years have been largely overtaken by parallel discussions involving opposition-backer Turkey and Damascus allies Russia and Iran.
