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New UN Syria envoy to visit Damascus Tuesday

The new United Nations envoy on the Syria conflict, Staffan de Mistura, is to make his first trip to Damascus on Tuesday, Syrian media and activists said.

De Mistura will hold three days of talks on the “prospects for a solution” to the conflict that has ravaged Syria since March 2011, the Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, reported on Monday.
A European diplomat in Beirut told AFP that de Mistura would arrive in the Lebanese capital on Monday and travel to Damascus by road on Tuesday.
While in Damascus, de Mistura will also meet representatives of opposition groups tolerated by the regime, Al-Watan said.
The head of the tolerated National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, Hassan Abdel Azim, confirmed the planned meeting, telling AFP it would take place at a Damascus hotel on Thursday.
He said the delegation would call on de Mistura to organise “new negotiations in Geneva” between government and opposition representatives to achieve a “quick political solution”.
But it is unclear whether there is broad political will for a fresh round of peace talks after two rounds of negotiations ended in failure earlier this year.
De Mistura’s predecessor, veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, resigned in May after the failure of the talks in Switzerland in January and February.
He had spent two years in the position, which he assumed after former UN secretary general Kofi Annan stepped down following a six-month stint in the role.
A former Italian deputy foreign minister, who has served previously in Iraq and Afghanistan, de Mistura was appointed to the Syria job in July.
More than 180,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.