MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said Tuesday that increasing terrorist activity around the world makes it even more important to settle the Syrian crisis as soon as possible.
“The problem should be solved urgently,” de Mistura said during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, also highlighting that the threat of terrorism is a serious issue.
De Mistura also stated the crisis should be solved through political dialogue and that there is no military solution to the issue.
Peaceful protests began in Syria in March 2011 and quickly descended into all-out fighting between government forces, rebels and jihadists, some of them linked to al-Qaeda. The ongoing civil war has already claimed more than 200,000 lives and forced as many as 3 million more to flee their homes.
One of the rebel groups fighting against the Assad regime is the Islamic State (IS), which has recently seized vast territories in Syria and Iraq, and besieged Kobani, a Kurdish town bordering Turkey.
