Syria talks in Geneva to resume on July 10

By Fatih

GENEVA

The seventh round of Syrian peace talks in Geneva is expected to begin next month, the UN announced Saturday.

"The Special Envoy for Syria wishes to announce he will convene a seventh round of the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva. The target date for of invitees is 9 July, with the round beginning on 10 July," the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria said in a statement.

"He [UN special envoy] intends to convene further rounds of talks in August and in September," the statement said.

It said expert meetings of the consultative process on constitutional and legal issues will also be held in addition to the formal sessions of the intra-Syrian talks.

The next round would focus on the same four topics -- the constitution, governance, elections, and fight against terrorism -- that had to be discussed in the previous round.

On May 19, the sixth round concluded in failure as there was no progress on any issue for a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

After the end of the previous round, the head of from the Bashar al-Assad regime, Bashar al-Jaafari had said that none of the four topics were discussed.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said: “We did not have to go deeply into all four baskets."

However, the head of the opposition delegation Nasr al-Hariri had told reporters: "l think we shall speak about every little achievement. I think keeping Geneva progress alive is an achievement."

Since war in Syria erupted in March 2011, more than 250,000 people have been killed, according to the UN. The Syrian Center for Policy Research puts the death toll at more than 470,000.