The United Nations special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said he hopes to hold the seventh round of Constitutional Committee talks in Geneva next month.
In a briefing at the global body on Wednesday, Pedersen said the Bashar Assad regime has been delaying the political process.
He said that he hopes to convene the U.N.-facilitated Syrian Constitutional Committee in February.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s acting U.N. representative Öncü Keçeli said the Assad regime does not intend to move the constitutional talks forward.
“It is clear that they aim to delay the process until they eliminate the opposition,” he said.
Commenting on the airstrikes in Idlib last month that resulted in civilian casualties and a prison standoff in Hassakeh between Daesh and the PKK terrorist organization's Syrian offshoot, the YPG, Pedersen said the developments in the country are "concerning."
He noted that 14 million civilians require humanitarian assistance and over 12 million have been displaced, most of whom are facing dire winter conditions.
“The country remains de facto divided and society is deeply fractured. Syrians see no concrete progress toward a political solution,” Pedersen said, "there have been no changes in the front lines for almost two years."
Pedersen said he visited Iran and Qatar in the past month to engage with the realities on the ground and briefed a European Union meeting of foreign ministers earlier this week.
“I am calling anew for serious diplomatic discussions on a range of steps that could begin to impact the conflict dynamics, build some trust and confidence between and among Syrians and international stakeholders and make progress step-by-step, step-for-step, within the framework of resolution 2254,” Pedersen said.
He added that in addition to holding bilateral consultations with Russia, the EU, Turkey and Qatar in December, he also consulted the Arab League, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States in Geneva last month and will continue these consultations with further interlocutors in the coming period.
The 2012 U.N. road map to peace in Syria calls for the drafting of a new constitution and ends with U.N.-supervised elections with all Syrians eligible to participate, including members of the diaspora.
The committee meetings, which started in October 2019 with 150 members, are the first concrete step to draft a new constitution to determine Syria's future.
Syria has been embroiled in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with brute ferocity.
Syria’s 10-year conflict has killed over 350,000 people and displaced half of the country’s prewar population of 23 million people, including more than 5 million refugees mostly in neighboring countries.
A round of Syrian peace talks in Geneva last year failed as the sides could not agree on how to engage. After the fifth round of negotiations failed in late January, Pedersen hinted the Syrian regime delegation was to blame for the lack of progress.
