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4/22/2018 Where global solutions are shaped for you | News & Media | Transcript of Press Conference by UN Special Envoy for Syria, Mr. Staffan d… https://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/CB030AA3D9D07157C12581F7002F92A3?OpenDocument 1/7 Transcript of Press Conference by UN Special Envoy for Syria, Mr. Staffan de Mistura 14 December 2017 SdeM: Thank you Alessandra. Let me make some few comments and then of course I will be available and open for questions. W e have just completed the 8th round of the intra-Syrian talks. I will give you some ideas and where we are, more or less. You must understand that the deep assessment of this round needs to wait for me to discuss it with the Secretary-General in New York, where I am going this weekend, and then the Security Council, so you have to forgive me if I will be still be a little bit vague I would say what I think, but I will not give you too much of analysis because that will depend on the Secretary-General’s discussion with me, on the issue that we have seen and heard and on my discussion with the Security Council. S o I remind you that this round has taken place after quite a lot of international activities and diplomacy, we said it the other day, I will just repeat it because it is good to remember. It took place in Da Nang, in Riyadh, in Sochi, at very high level and there were also negotiations and discussions between us and others with the two delegations. S o the goal we had - and we still have - was very clear, to bring about real negotiations, in other words that’s what I said in the Security Council, on the full implementation of resolution 2254, because regardless of what people say or different delegation analysis everybody agrees that the only resolution we have is 2254 - and that we talk about full implementation. How to do it? In what form? How accelerated? Through what means? - is another issue. But 2254 [is what we have]. I said and we indicated in the agenda of the meeting a particular focus on the 12 principles, on constitutional processes and elections, while of course elaborating the thoughts on governance and counter-terrorism, which are basket 4 and basket 1. And then never forgetting, pushing for confidence building measures such as detainees, again, which is a terrible issue which is not moving forward. S o, what is the assessment? Let’s be frank - as you know I am a very positive thinker, by now we know each other - we did not achieve, we did not achieve these negotiations. In other words, negotiations, in reality, in the end, did not take place. So why? Let me give you the position of the two sides, then I will make some comments myself. T he Government: you must have heard Ambassador Jaafari gave his own interpretation or version on why he did attend these meetings, and when he attended, I will give you what I heard from him in the meeting. The Government had been claiming that the opposition has put themselves a precondition due to the Riyadh II statement which took place in Riyadh - and insist, the Government, that such a Riyadh II statement should be withdrawn, otherwise they do not talk to them. And also questioned whether the opposition delegation represented a sufficiently wide spectrum of views. My explanation to try to convince the Government to engage with the opposition was: 1, we are in Geneva - not on the islands, we are not in Riyadh, we are in Geneva. And I will judge what is said in Geneva. Everyone can express their own opinion as long as it is not a precondition. The Government then reacted by saying that there was a very strong statement upon arrival of the opposition delegation which in a way reflected some of the points of the Riyadh II declaration. It is true and therefore I did express my disappointment with the opposition - and in all fairness, if you look, and you are the best judges, there were several other important, in my opinion, well calibrated statements where the opposition did not refer any more to that context which was particularly annoying to the Government. I n spite of that, the Government insisted on not wanting to meet the other side, the opposition and insisted that they did not wanted even to discuss through us with the other side, in spite of the fact that we had one meeting almost parallel as you know because they felt that I should be imposing on the opposition to withdraw the statement which was done by someone else, not all of them, there were others in Riyadh II. That obviously was not a logical or possible type of approach because to me sounded again a precondition