UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen took part in the latest round of Syria peace talks, which Russia sees as a sign that he is willing to engage with the three guarantors of the talks: Russia, Iran and Turkey. In turn, Russia made assurances that it supports UN-sponsored peace and humanitarian efforts in Syria.

The gathering was held April 26 in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana). It was preceded by a March 24 working meeting in Moscow between United Nations Development Program officials and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin. Vershinin had met Pedersen earlier at a March 12-14 donor conference on “Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region,” held in Brussels and organized by the European Union and the UN.

Shortly after Pedersen assumed his duties in January, Syrian authorities credited him, among other things, for his efforts to launch a Syrian Constitutional Committee. This was in stark contrast to his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura, whom Damascus viewed as an unbalanced pro-opposition figure. Yet, UN bureaucracy still seems devoted to the past approach, characterized by a reluctance to support Syria’s large-scale economic reconstruction — estimated to be worth $250 billion to $400 billion — before a final political solution to the crisis is reached. This continues to limit the UN's early recovery measures.

On a parallel track, Pedersen’s assistants accelerated field efforts to gather and process information about legal and institutional frameworks for doing business and investing in Syria, as well as to track Syrian government policies aimed at attracting investors for an ambitious national strategy of “Rebuilding Syria.”