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Russian diplomat says situation with Syrian ceasefire 'not desperate'

A Russian diplomat says the cessation of hostilities has been maintained

GENEVA, March 29. /TASS/. The situation with maintaining the ceasefire in Syria is not desperate, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Wednesday.

"I would not describe the situation as desperate," he said commenting on a reporter’s remark. "The cessation of hostilities has been maintained."

"The monitoring data show that the ceasefire is generally observed," he added. The diplomat noted, however, that "some other countries could influence the parties to the conflict" to consolidate the ceasefire.

The diplomat said the delegation of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee has reiterated its willingness to work to ensure positive results of the talks in Geneva.

"We had an open exchange of views on the current situation at the talks," he said. "We came to the common conclusion that we would like to see some positive results of this round to achieve settlement in Syria on the basis of the principles of independence, territorial integrity and a pluralistic state and that all these issues should be tackled by the Syrians themselves during the negotiation process."

Gatilov arrived in Geneva on March 27. On Tuesday, he held a series of meetings with the participants in the intra-Syrian negotiations, including with the delegation of the government and the Moscow and Cairo opposition groups. In addition to that, he met with UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and Randa Kassis, representative of the Astana opposition group, which does not take part in the talks.