ASTANA, November 23. /TASS/. Moscow expects that the meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee will be held in mid-January, presidential envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev said on Wednesday. He was speaking after the 19th international meeting on Syria in the Astana format.

"We are all in favor of holding the ninth session as soon as possible. We hope that we will be able to do this in mid-January. <...> We hope that through joint efforts, primarily on the part of Mr. [Geir] Pedersen (Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General UN for Syria - TASS), we will be able to overcome <...> among other things logistical difficulties related specifically to holding the next session. Will we return, as they say, to Geneva, or will some other venue be selected, which is more neutral and suits primarily the two sides of the conflict - the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition," Lavrentiev said.

The special envoy of the President of Russia said that at the meeting with Pedersen he discussed the further development of the political process in Syria.

"I really want to express my gratitude to him for coming here. We analyzed the situation very carefully, came to the understanding that the process of constitutional reform has somewhat slowed down, and more than six months have passed since the eighth session of the Constitutional Committee was held," he added.