Date: Oct 18, 2018 Source: The Daily Star U.N. Syria envoy to make last push before stepping down Reuters UNITED NATIONS/ANKARA: United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said Wednesday that he would step down at the end of November for personal reasons, but would use his final month to push for the formation of a committee to rewrite the Syrian constitution. De Mistura, who has been in the job for more than four years, told the Security Council Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had instructed him to “verify once and for all” whether a credible, balanced constitutional committee could be convened. De Mistura is the longest serving of three U.N. mediators for the more-than-seven-year-old Syrian conflict. His predecessors former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi both quit in frustration over a global deadlock on how to end the war. Diplomats said possible replacements for de Mistura included U.N. Iraq envoy Jan Kubis, former Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra, U.N. Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov and Norway’s Ambassador to China Geir Pedersen. Participants at a Syrian peace conference in Russia in January had agreed to form a constitutional committee that will be made up of 150 people, with a third chosen by the government, a third by opposition groups and a third by the U.N. De Mistura said creation of the panel had been delayed as “questions continue to be raised, mainly by the Syrian regime, over the composition” of the U.N. list. He said he would visit Damascus next week and hoped to win government approval for a “credible and inclusive third list.” “If there is a political will, there is no reason for the constitutional committee not to be convened in November,” he told the 15-member council, which has long been deadlocked over the war. Meanwhile, James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative for Syria engagement, said some militants have withdrawn from the demilitarization zone in Idlib following the deal between Russia and Turkey. Jeffrey told reporters in Ankara during a brief visit with the U.S. secretary of state: “There is some question as to whether everybody from [Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham] has left.” HTS is the most powerful militant alliance in Idlib.