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STORY: GENEVA / SYRIA TALKS DE MISTURA
TRT: 3:05
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 31 MARCH 2017, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press stakeout Staffan de Mistura
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“All what we are doing is working in parallel on several fronts and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and no pre-conditions. So these are basically some of the points that we want to make sure when we talk to both sides.”
4. Close up, press officer
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“No one can deny, and I cannot deny, that there are serious challenges and that I am not seeing immediately this development into a peace agreement, no doubt about that.”
6. Close up, Security
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“There are real challenges on the ground we are seeing them in front of our eyes, but let’s be frank: no one walked out in spite of them, no one threatened to walk out, and everyone was serious and business like in pursuing and pushing their points of view, but were there and did it professionally.”
8. Medium shot, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“Both the government and the opposition demonstrated a new form of maturity and commitment to continue the process notwithstanding mutual recriminations and notwithstanding the fact that there are many serious grave developments taken place on the military side inside the country.”
10. Wide shot, Staffan de Mistura and journalists
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“We must maintain this incremental momentum on the political process – even if it is only incremental.”
12. Medium shot, Office of Special Envoy
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“Last time we said that the train is in the station ready – I think we can say, especially in Switzerland where the trains are very precise, that the train is moving out of the station slowly, but moving out of the station.”
14. Close up, laptop screen
15.SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“We are now moving to Brussels where there will be a conference dedicated to Syria and we will be there and certainly my hope is that will be an occasion for a better clarity of the international engagement, particularly on the issue about humanitarian assistance.”
16. Close up, cameramen
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“After that, we have New York, Security Council, after that we should have the Astana guarantors in Teheran to meet, put it in your schedule, because it is an important meeting, because we hope that they will be able to revitalize the ceasefire which at the moment is in a difficult moment.”
18. Close up, journalists
19. Close up, journalists
20. Close up, security
Ending the fifth round of talks aimed to reach a peace agreement in Syria, the UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura pointed out some “incremental” progress, adding “I cannot deny, that there are serious challenges and that I am not seeing immediately this development into a peace agreement, no doubt about that.”
Speaking today (31 Mar) to reporters in Geneva, De Mistura said “there are real challenges on the ground we are seeing them in front of our eyes.” He stressed, “But let’s be frank, no one walked out in spite of them, no one threatened to walk out, and everyone was serious and business like in pursuing and pushing their points of view, but were there and did it professionally.”
He also said, “Both the government and the opposition demonstrated a new form of maturity and commitment to continue the process notwithstanding mutual recriminations and notwithstanding the fact that there are many serious grave developments taken place on the military side inside the country.” Heavy fighting continued on the ground in Syria during the Geneva talks.
The UN Envoy made it clear that progress was slowly being made saying “last time we said that the train is in the station ready – I think we can say, especially in Switzerland where the trains are very precise, that the train is moving out of the station slowly, but moving out of the station.”
The focus of this round was the four so-called “baskets”: political transition, constitutional issues, elections, and counter terrorism.
Looking ahead at global political events that could affect the next round of Syria talks, de Mistura reminded journalists that “we are now moving to Brussels where there will be a conference dedicated to Syria and we will be there and certainly my hope is that will be an occasion for a better clarity of the international engagement, particularly on the issue about humanitarian assistance.”
Following the European Union-organized meeting in early April, the Security Council will then take up the Syria issue in New York, before the powers that guarantee the ceasefire – the Russian Federation, Iran and Turkey – meet in Teheran. De Mistura said, “Put it in your schedule, because it is an important meeting, because we hope that they will be able to revitalize the ceasefire which at the moment is in a difficult moment.”
This round of talks, as previous ones, were not direct negotiations but rather proximity talks in which the UN’s Special Envoy met separately with the opposing parties.
The UN aimed for a political deal to end a six year conflict that has killed close to half a million people, injured more than a million, and displaced over 12 million - nearly half of the country’s pre-war population which started in 2011 with protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
