UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen held a press conference following a series of meetings with Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Muallem in Damascus.

“We obviously concentrated on the situation in the northeast, and I repeated the Secretary-General’s strong appeal that we should end the fighting immediately, that there needs to be a cessation of hostilities and that we are extremely alarmed by the humanitarian consequences of the crisis and that we today have seen already too many people killed and of course more than 160,000 people being displaced,” said Pedersen.

Remarking that there is only a political solution also to the crisis in the northeast, Pedersen appealed to all parties to participate in this.

Pedersen said they also discussed the launching of the Constitutional Committee by the end of this month.

Asked if the ongoing developments in the northeast affect the launch of the Constitutional Committee, the UN envoy said; “We are very alarmed by developments in the northeast and of course we need to make sure that what is happening is not threating the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria. But we have agreed, both here in Damascus, that we shall go forward and that we will have the first meeting of the Constitutional Committee by the end of this month.”