UN hopes to hit 'moving target' of Syria talks by late January
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura hopes to hold the first talks between representatives of the Syrian regime and opposition in almost two years in Geneva by the end of January.
WASHINGTON — United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura plans to hold the first talks in almost two years between representatives of the Syrian regime and opposition toward the end of January, a senior UN official said Dec. 22, though he acknowledged the Syria diplomatic process is a “moving target.”
“Almost everybody wants these talks to be successful so that we can finally get a political solution to this really unacceptable problem,” Michael Moller, the director general of the UN office in Geneva, said at a press conference Dec. 22.
“All I can tell you is that the intention is that he [de Mistura] starts here, in the Palais, sometime toward the end of January,” Moller said.
“Mr. de Mistura is … basically living on a plane these days, and every day there are evolutions in how things are being planned and being received by the different parties,” Moller said. “It makes it very, very hard to give you some idea of how this is going to evolve.”
