UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen is expected to visit Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other officials on stepping up efforts to form Syria’s constitutional committee.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin told journalists that the UN envoy will be in Moscow for two days, saying the meeting between Lavrov and Pedersen is scheduled for Friday.
Diplomatic sources revealed that Moscow wants to discuss with the envoy his vision on ways to resume Syria’s political process.
They said Russian officials will put a special focus on the establishment of the constitutional committee to launch its work the soonest.
The decision to set up the committee was agreed during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on January 30, 2018.
The committee, tasked with drafting the country’s main laws, would include representatives of the Syrian government and opposition, as well as civil society members.
In the battlefield, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that the “fiercest military operation” launched by Russia and the Syrian regime in northwest Syria entered its 65th day.
The Observatory said that this operation has failed at all levels, because despite the unlimited Russian support to Syrian regime forces and their allied militias, and despite launching around 46,000 airstrikes and ground assaults, the Syrian forces advanced in only 20 areas in the countryside of Hama and Idlib.
