MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On Sunday, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura arrived in Damascus for a working visit.
"The Geneva talks’ next phase [is] crucially important, are crucially important, because we will be focusing in particular on political transition, on governance, and constitutional principles. We hope and plan to make them constructive and we plan to make them concrete," de Mistura told journalists after a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Geneva.
The peace talks followed a Russian-US-brokered ceasefire deal reached on February 27. On March 14, Putin ordered Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to start withdrawing most of Russia's military contingent from Syria, which had been conducting strikes against terrorist targets since late September.
