United Nations, Sep 24 (IANS/EFE) UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has announced that he wants to give a new impetus to political talks in Syria alongside the US-led military campaign there against the Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical group.
"Fighting terrorism needs to be accompanied with a genuine process," said de Mistura Tuesday.
The UN representative declined to comment further on the coalition airstrikes and referred to earlier comments by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Hours before de Mistura spoke to journalists, Ban said he supported the US action, citing the "immediate threat to international peace and security" which the IS posed.
De Mistura met with foreign ministers of the Arab League to analyse the situation in Syria and the fight against jihadi groups.
The diplomat acknowledged that the fighting in northern Syria had changed the situation there, but stressed that the UN's priorities were to reduce the level of violence, improve access to humanitarian aid and promote the political process.
"We will continue doing whatever we can along these lines regardless of what is happening on the ground," he said.
De Mistura said that there were no "grand projects" for Syria at the moment and that the main priority was to protect people.
He said that as many as 11 million people needed help in Syria and that international donor funding had dropped.
De Mistura added that so far there were no indications that the airstrikes had affected the distribution of humanitarian aid.
"On the contrary, I think that if there were any kind of a lessening of pressure by the Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the IS) on the local population, we'll have fewer (refugees), a little bit, moving across (the border) and therefore less of an urgent need of humanitarian assistance," he said.
--IANS/EFE
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