GENEVA - The UN Special Envoy for Syria announced Friday that the latest round of Syria peace talks ended, and he hopes to resume negotiations between warring factions "sometime in June" to address all the critical issues which had not been touched upon this week.
"We did not have the physical time for in-depth discussions in the formal sessions to cover all four baskets," UN envoy Staffan de Mistura told press, referring to the issues of governance, a new constitution, elections and the war on terrorism.
"But we did discuss several substantive issues of key concern to the parties and we intend to move ahead on all four baskets in coming rounds, while the new process of having expert meetings will also continue," he added.
The setting up this week of expert meetings on constitutional and legal matters was considered a positive step by the envoy, who hoped that they will push forward the political track in future negotiations.
The envoy also lauded the fact that the procedure this time round was more business-like, and that there were fewer rhetorical statements by rival factions engaged in UN-mediated talks seeking to broker a political end to the six-year conflict.

The messages from rival delegations were more mixed however. The head of the Syrian government delegation, Bashar al-Jaafari, said earlier Friday that none of the four baskets were discussed. (Xinhua)