GENEVA (Sputnik) — UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said Monday he had agreed with US State Secretary John Kerry that controls must be tightened over the Syrian ceasefire deal.
The UN envoy met with Kerry in the Swiss city of Geneva earlier in the day to discuss the peace process in the country.
"The mechanism needs a political will, otherwise it will [remain] only a mechanism. And that has actually been discussed today – the [plan] for a much better mechanism for monitoring and controlling a new ceasefire," de Mistura told reporters at a joint press briefing with Kerry.
A ceasefire hammered out by Russia and the United States has been in place in parts of Syria since late February. De Mistura said last week that the truce was holding but barely and urged the two powers to save the peace process.
Last Friday, Moscow and Washington announced they had brokered a new "regime of silence" in Syria that was implemented in the Damascus suburbs for 24 hours and in the northern Latakia province for 72 hours starting at midnight on April 30. The deal was later prolonged for several more days.