UN Sec. Council to Consider Syria Contact Group Next Week - French Ambassador

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia, the US, China, France and the UK, will discuss a potential contact group on Syria, as suggested by Paris. They will establish a format, French Ambassador to Russia Sylvie Bermann told Sputnik on Saturday.

"We believe that it is important to start making a transition to the political phase of the resolution of the conflict in Syria. The issue related to this contact group and its format will be discussed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, including Russia, in New York next week," the French diplomat said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in late August that a new contact group on Syria within the United Nations would be launched in September. Macron also promoted the proposal for a contact group that would include permanent members of the UN Security Council and other states that could contribute to the normalization of the situation in the country in his phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

The war in Syria has raged for six years, leaving an estimated 13.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including 6 million displaced inside the country, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).