Mr. President, Members of the Security Council, 1. I have come to New York to convey in person, I could have done it by video as we have done many times, to the Security Council the Secretary-General’s grave concern at the escalation of violence in Syria – and to urge you to focus on de-…

SdeM: Thank you. This was an open session, so you I’m sure you have been following it and you heard what was said. So basically, what I can say is that the Security Council was now in the private session, completely supportive of the role that the UN is expected to have in following up both on…

JE: Thank you very much. We just concluded the Humanitarian Task Force meeting, and heard from colleagues sitting in Damascus, Gaziantep on the Turkish border and in Amman. The message was unusually blunt to the member states. When we need their ability to influence the parties on the ground the…

Let me thank the Russian Federation for inviting me, also on behalf also of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey, to attend this Congress which is meant to contribute to the Geneva process. I am aware that there were intense discussions in this room today and you are proving it…

In Vienna on 25 and 26 January 2018 I engaged in consultations in a special round 9 meeting with the delegations of the Government of Syria and the Syrian Negotiations Commission within the framework of the UN-facilitated political process on Syria. In accordance with the invitation, I focused on…

RER: Good evening, I had a two-hour meeting today with Dr. Fayssal Mekdad, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic, which was held in the framework of the continuous consultations between the Office of the Special Envoy and the Syrian government, on different…

Arabic versionThe United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, today sent separate invitations to the Syrian Government and the Syrian Negotiation Commission to a special meeting with the United Nations in the framework of the United Nations-facilitated Geneva political process on…

The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, was shocked and saddened to learn of the death in hospital in Damascus of Mr Mounir Darwish, following an apparent hit and run with a vehicle driven by an unidentified assailant outside his home. The Special Envoy calls for those involved to be…

Arabic version Special Envoy de Mistura attended today the Astana meeting, which was hosted very effectively by President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and organised under the auspices of the three guarantors of the 30 December 2016 ceasefire – the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Russian Federation and…

JE: This was indeed a stocktaking meeting of the Humanitarian Task Force of the International Syria Support Group. We were from the UN’s side putting very bluntly to the Member States, those who have influence on the ground, the facts. And the facts are not good. I remember the last stocktaking in…