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| - The UN's special envoy to Syria called on the Security Council Tuesday to jump-start the deadlocked peace process in the war-torn country, diplomats said, noting the "failure" of the political response to the crisis. The conflict, which broke out after the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in 2011, has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions. Endless rounds of UN-backed peace talks have failed to stem the bloodshed and in recent years have been largely overtaken by parallel negotiations led by Russia and Turkey. "The current divisions in the international community need to be bridged," Geir Pedersen told journalists after a Security Council videoconference. Pedersen said that without "constructive international diplomacy" on Syria, it was unlikely that "any track -- constitutional track or any other -- will really move forward." The council's monthly meeting on Syria is usually public, but officials kept the session private after a meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva last month ended with no progress. The committee was created in 2019 to modify Syria's 2012 constitution, which directs the organization of elections under the supervision of the UN. "Session five of the Constitutional Committee was a missed opportunity and disappointment," Pedersen said of the January meeting, which included the Syrian regime, the opposition and civil society. "While one party is proposing to work as we had done before, the other is seeking a complete change in frequency and length in meetings and a timeline," Pedersen said, without revealing which group wanted which outcome. "There is a lack of trust and confidence and a lack of will to compromise -- and a lack of political space to compromise too," he added. Diplomats told AFP Western powers were unanimous during the Tuesday's meeting in decrying the "failure" of the political process. One representative accused the constitutional committee of having achieved nothing, and blamed the Syrian regime for "delay tactics." prh/la/caw/ft
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