11 August 2016•Update: 11 August 2016
By Fatih Erel
GENEVA
The UN’s Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, praised Thursday the recent Turkey-Russia rapprochement which could help solve ongoing crisis in the war-torn country.
After the International Syria Support Group's (ISSG) Humanitarian Access Task Force meeting in Geneva, de Mistura told reporters: "Seeing Turkish and Russian presidents talking about Syria... is certainly something we are looking at with great interest."
Erdogan met Tuesday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, marking the first meeting between the two leaders since Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane last November.
De Mistura added: "Turkey is an extremely important player... in terms of humanitarian assistance and finding a political solution in Syria."
Responding to reports of chlorine toxic gas being dropped on Aleppo, the envoy said: "There is a lot of evidence that it actually did take place... and it is a war crime."
About Russia's proposal for daily three-hour ceasefires in Aleppo, de Mistura said such short-scale truces were not enough.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to the UN, which stopped counting two years ago.
