MOSCOW: The UN envoy for Syria visited Russia on Thursday for talks focusing on future peace negotiations.

The envoy, Staffan de Mistura said his meeting with Russian Foreign Min­ister Sergey Lavrov comes at a “delicate, important mom­ent” in Syria’s six-year-old civil war.

He stressed the importance of coordination betw­een UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva, which are aimed at resolving the conflict, and upcoming talks in Astana sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran, which are focused on reducing violence. De Mistura said the two tracks are “closely interconnected.” “Without a good de-escalation process Geneva talks will be difficult, but without the Geneva progress there will be no horizon,” he said.

The Astana talks set for later this month will focus on the specifics of so-called de-escalation zones in Syria.

Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed to establish the zones, signing on to a Russian plan under which President Bashar Assad’s air force would halt flights over designated areas across the war-torn country.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017