The release of detainees from Syrian prisons could be a key confidence-building measure on the road to settling the crisis in the country, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said on Wednesday
NUR-SULTAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th December, 2019) The release of detainees from Syrian prisons could be a key confidence-building measure on the road to settling the crisis in the country, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said on Wednesday.
"We need, as I said before, more substantial releases at scale. It's of course first and foremost important for the individuals and their families but, I think, if it's done in the correct manner it can help to build confidence," Pedersen told reporters on the sidelines of the Astana-14 talks.
Pedersen went on to say that the detainee issue has been his priority since he took the post of special envoy in January of 2019.
Arbitrary detentions have been a pervasive feature in the Syrian civil war, with the government most frequently under fire from the United Nations and Western nations for the practice despite all sides having been implicated. The International Committee of the Red Cross in a 2018 report put the number of detained Syrians at around 10,000 people while maintaining that the actual number could be double.
