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Damascus Delegation Head Asks de Mistura to Condemn Homs Terrorist Attack

© AFP 2023 / Kirill KUDRYAVTSEVSyria's UN ambassador and head of the government delegation Bashar al-Jaafari gives a press conference following Syria peace talks in Astana on January 24, 2017.
Syria's UN ambassador and head of the government delegation Bashar al-Jaafari gives a press conference following Syria peace talks in Astana on January 24, 2017. - Sputnik International
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Bashar Jaafari, the head of the Syrian government delegation to the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, held a meeting with UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Saturday and asked him to issue a statement condemning the recent terrorist attack in Homs.

GENEVA (Sputnik) — "I have just met with Mr Staffan de Mistura. The meeting lasted 2.5 hours. The issue was combating terrorism. We requested de Mistura to issue a statement to condemn terrorist suicide attack by al-Nusra Front [terrorist organization] and partners in Homs today… We also requested de Mistura to ask other groups (at the talks), opposition platforms, to do the same," Jaafari told reporters.

"What happened today casts shadow on Geneva process. It was also a political attack," Jaafari said.

Jaafari also said that the Damascus delegation to Geneva talks has not yet discussed a procedural paper of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura containing suggestions on the format of the current round of talks.

"We have not yet reached that paper, we have not discussed it, because we are now discussing terrorism," Jaafari told reporters after a meeting with de Mistura.

Syrian government's head of delegation Bashar al-Jaafari attends a news conference after a meeting on Syria at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, April 18, 2016. - Sputnik International
Damascus Envoy Calls Terror Attack in Syria's Homs a 'Message'
On Friday, Michael Contet, the acting chief of staff of the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, said that de Mistura was waiting for Syrian government and opposition delegations to look into and reply on procedural documents for the Geneva settlement talks.

The UN special envoy expresses his support for direct talks and also suggests focusing on three main topics — governance, constitution and elections — and devoting at least one day of the talks to each of these topics, according to Sputnik's source.

De Mistura also proposes the formula "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" for the talks in his procedural paper, the source added.

As for the issues of fight against terrorism and ceasefire, the envoy proposed to leave it for the Astana format.

The head of the Syrian government delegation to the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva also said that the next meeting with UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura is scheduled for February 28.

"The meeting has been scheduled by de Mistura and will take place next Tuesday," Jaafari told reporters after talks with the UN special envoy for Syria.

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