Syrian government and opposition forces arrived in the Swiss city of Geneva, for a renewed UN-backed attempt to restart a political process, aimed at bringing an end to the almost six-years conflict. That said, UN envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura stressed that he did not expect a breakthrough at the summit, but rather views it as the beginning of a series of rounds of negotiations that aim to reach a political agreement.
“Just because we do have a ceasefire, we need to keep the momentum. We are not having, second point of the bottom line, any excessive expectations – let’s be frank- but clearly, we are determined to give the Syrians another chance for addressing the political process that they all claim they want to address. ” / “So I am not expecting an immediate breakthrough from this round of negotiations, but the beginning of a series of rounds that should enable to go much more in depth on the substantive issues that are required for a political solution in Syria,” said de Mistura.
While the Geneva talks focus on politics, de Mistura said he expected more rounds of talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran, to deal with the ceasefire and related humanitarian issues.De Mistura declined to discuss the format of the Geneva talks, which he said would start with bilateral meetings today, but did not say what his objectives were for this round of negotiations.