Spotlight: Syria talks to produce "minimum common platform" by next week: UN official

As the first week of the latest round of Syrian talks comes to a close, United Nations Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura welcomed the fact that discussions had not faltered and hoped that a common platform between warring factions could be achieved by March 24.

"Next week will be important because we will be aiming at a minimum common platform not only on principles but points that could lead to a better understanding on what direction we will be going for the political transition," said the special envoy who is mediating the latest round of talks seeking to broker a political end to the Syrian conflict.

"This will be the main focus of the next round of talks in April," he added.

To date, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the umbrella group for Syrian opposition factions locked in a five-year struggle with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has produced a substantive paper with points outlying their vision of governance and political transition.

The Syrian government delegation has yet to relay such an overview, though it submitted a positional paper on the "basic elements for a political solution" earlier this week.

"The government reiterated its own interest of having a commonly shared list of principles. I think that will be our focus early next week, to see what are the grey zones, the areas of common ground on the principles," de Mistura reported.

"They are the basis for them getting deeply into what we consider a common ground for what is the mother of all issues, the mandate for the political transition," said de Mistura who pushed the Syrian government delegation to provide their version of a political transition paper as soon as possible.

Though no direct talks are in sight, de Mistura welcomed the fact that proximity talks had not broken down as they did last month when discussions came to a premature standstill after parties failed to see eye to eye on a number of issues.

"The proximity system has clearly contributed to keep the talks going. No walk outs, no excessive rhetoric, no breakdowns in spite of the fact that I am still obviously detecting large distances," he noted.

The first stage of this latest round of talks is expected to end on March 24. Endit