While talks between senior Russian and United States officials aiming for a broad ceasefire continue, he signalled an initiative this month, ahead of the UN General Assembly in NY.
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“We are in the process of preparing a political initiative, which will be significant and relevant, and which in our opinion will help the General Assembly to face the Syrian problems right in the eye”, he said.
Military, security and diplomatic officials from the United States and Russian Federation resumed talks in Geneva on Wednesday to give a “renewed and solid momentum to the cessation of hostilities”, de Mistura said.
On Thursday, Moadamiyeh’s residents agreed to let President Bashar Assad’s government restore its security presence and political institutions in the suburb, according to Hassan Ghadour, a resident and leading negotiator of the deal.
At a press conference in Geneva, the United Nations envoy to Syria warned of Syrian government’s use of siege tactics to force evacuations of residents from specific areas, citing the example of Daraya, a neighbouring suburb of Moadamiyeh from where residents were evacuated after it was surrendered to the government.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura voiced concern that the Daraya deal was part of a wider strategy by the regime to empty rebel enclaves that would soon be extended to other areas.
Opposition activists say warplanes have carried out several airstrikes in Syria’s Hama, killing at least 25 people, amid a lightning advance by insurgents on government-controlled areas of the central province.
The civil war has killed more than 250,000 people, displaced 11 million – about half of Syria’s pre-conflict population, caused a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, drawn in regional and global powers and contributed to rising Islamist militant attacks across the world. In the past three days, the insurgents have pushed their way from the north of the province, where they are usually based, south toward government-held areas.
Long held by opposition forces, Daraya near Damascus was ravaged by constant army bombardment, and just one aid convoy reached the town since it came under siege in late 2012 – arriving in June this year.
De Mistura warned there were “indications that after Daraya we may have other Darayas”, pointing to worrying signs around the besieged towns of Waer and Moadamiyat al-Sham.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said government warplanes killed 10 “terrorists” in northern Hama.
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Jan Egeland, de Mistura’s deputy and head of a UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, described the forced evacuation as “heartbreaking”.
