Participant list unconfirmed one week before Syrian political talks: UN

The United Nations does not yet have a final list of participants to invite to the Syrian political talks, set to commence on Jan. 25 in Geneva, UN Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Farhan Haq said here Monday.

"The UN will proceed with issuing invitations when the countries spearheading the international Syria support group process come to an understanding on who among the opposition should be invited," said Haq.

Haq said that the Secretary-General urges the members of the ISSG to redouble their efforts to reach agreement, and said that the objective remained to hold the talks on Jan. 25 as planned.

Elbio Rosselli, permanent representative of Uruguay to the UN and president of the UN Security Council for the month of January 2016, also confirmed that the date of Jan. 25 remained firm.

"No different date was considered today," Rosselli told journalists Monday after the Security Council received a briefing from UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura about his complex preparations for the talks.

Meanwhile, Rosselli also said that de Mistura had told the Security Council that he had received assurances from both Saudi Arabia and Iran that tensions between the two countries would not spill over into the Syria political process.

The date of Jan. 25 was set by de Mistura after the Security Council adopted resolution 2254 in December 2015, which set out a roadmap for a Syrian-led political transition to end the country's conflict.

De Mistura said at the time that he hoped the talks would bring together the Syrian government with "the broadest possible spectrum of the Syrian opposition and others."

Earlier this month, the envoy visited Saudi Arabic, Iran and Syria, over concerns that Tehran and Riyadh's row might affect Syrian peace process. The two regional powers are locked in a diplomatic row over Sunni-majority Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, along with 46 others over terror charges.

In recent weeks the UN has also voiced concerns about hundreds of thousands of Syrians living under siege with little or no access to food and medical assistance.

Haq told journalists Monday that UN humanitarian agencies were concerned about an estimated 200,000 people, mostly women and children, facing sharply deteriorating conditions in the besieged western side of Deir-Ez-Zor city in Syria.

More than a quarter of a million Syrians have died and more than 4.6 million have become refugees since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011. Two previous rounds of peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva have have failed to yield any significant results. Endit