SdeM: First of all, thank you Federica, on behalf of the Secretary-General, you heard it this morning, it has been a quite remarkable type of alliance of working together between the EU, yourself, your commitment - and the work of the UN.
Now I won’t add to what you said, you were right, we were not expecting today a breakthrough on the political side, we were not expecting that suddenly delegations would start looking differently at the political side, but we did not have a confrontation.  And they were all there in the room, for that a good sign.  Remember, one week ago we were on the brink of a very serious crisis, it was the closest moment to what one could say a very tense cold war rhetoric - and even military activities - were taking place. 
Thank God it was avoided, thanks to mature thinking and mature decisions, and the priority of the Secretary-General, and of myself, who went around the whole region and then in the meeting which took place in Sweden [with the Security Council members] was to lower the temperature - top priority.  Syria cannot become the reason for getting that far, not only in a national or regional, but also a global environment.
So from that point of view I think that was achieved, but that does not mean that the Security Council has suddenly decided to take away or make away or brush away their own differences, the problem we are facing is that the UN Secretariat can do only “that much” and will continue pushing, together with friends like you. But if the Security Council continues being divided and angrily divided, well we have to realise that that is not good.
Now I took advantage of this opportunity because it was the first one after this week of very serious tensions, to go through and analyze what are the current avenues, mechanisms, for political process.  One is called Astana, and I indicated that the duty of Astana, the assignment given by themselves, three countries, to themselves was to de-escalate.  They achieved that last year and they have been doing quite a lot of progress, but lately we have been seeing escalation, not de-escalation, and we have seen nothing happening on a very important file - for a year, waiting for Astana to deliver, which is the issue about prisoners, of detainees, of missing people.  So Astana is in the danger, in my modest opinion, and I am not the only one, to become seeing its limits, unless they decide to work hard on de-escalation, again, and on detainees.  So that is one, then you have got Sochi.  Sochi was a very useful and very important effort, and it did produce a very good proposal, but the problem is that there was no follow-up to it.  We have been waiting for the outcome of Sochi to come to Geneva but there has been no follow-up on it, so Sochi risks also to be considered having produced a stillborn unless there is a pro-activity in this famous Constitutional Commission.
That leads me to Geneva - well all this doesn’t help Geneva.  That’s why I am waiting and holding the fort about new intra-Syrian talks because in the current atmosphere that would not lead to a genuine discussion between the Government and the opposition.
So where are we? Well we are at a moment when in fact by acknowledging all this, there is a need of high diplomatic contacts, between not only the three countries of Astana, who will be meeting again, but many other countries who do, are stakeholders in what can be the future political solution.  If they, thanks to the wakeup call that we all got, but they got too, about the danger we all ran last week, would then start talking to each other on a road map, and we have it, it is called 2254, and in that context, very simple, everyone is fighting Daesh, one point, everyone believes there is no military solution, lets prove it, how do you do that? Constitutional Commission, and let’s work on it, let’s have the government willing to engage on it, and the Syrian opposition to be realistically engaging on it, and then elections, under UN supervision.  The Iraqi Foreign Minister reminded us - and I was in charge of those elections so I remember very well - when they started the first elections with UN supervision, it looked impossible - well Iraq is not Switzerland yet - but look what a difference, and he was reminding us about it.
And last but not least, you need a safe and neutral environment.  People should be involved, engaging in elections and the Constitution and not risking to be kidnapped, arrested or killed.  All that is possible and today even more urgent than before since this wakeup call is producing, and I cannot elaborate further, a lot of diplomatic high-level discussions. 
We are ready in Geneva and with your help we can go further.
Thank you.
 
Question : La première question pour le représentant des Nations Unies: est-ce que l'on peut considérer en vous écoutant, que ce que vous avez réuni ici, aujourd'hui, même si toutes les promesses ne sont pas engagées, c'est un échec? Vous nous avez dit avant de commencer la réunion que vous espériez réunir huit milliards de dollars, vous êtes à 4.4, c’est-à-dire la moitié. Est-ce que vous considérez que c'est un demi-succès ou un semi-échec?
 
SdeM : Je voudrais ajouter sur ça, si vous permettez… c’est vrai, il y a un moment d’activité militaire, on le voit partout. Est-ce que vous connaissez le mot « victoire [à la Pyrrhus] » ? C’est ça la clé à expliquer à ceux qui pensent qu’avec des mouvements militaires on peut obtenir la paix. Parce que si on pense ça, l’histoire nous apprend qu’il y a des risques de guérilla permanente, il y a un risque d’instabilité, il y a un risque qu’il n’y ait pas de vraie reconstruction, et surtout, et surtout, il y a le risque que Daesh en profite pour revenir. Donc, c’est vraiment dans l’intérêt de tout le monde, y inclus, et peut-être surtout, du gouvernement syrien, qu’une fois qu’ils ont compris qu’à la fin il faut venir à la table et discuter, surtout quand on pense être dans une position comme ils pensent être actuellement, de force… parlons de constitution, parlons d’élections… L’alternative ? … une victoire [à la Pyrrhus].
 
Question: You talk about and everyone always talks about there is not military solution but clearly Syria and Russia and Iran and Turkey believe that there is a military solution and that they are pursuing military solution.  What evidence do you have, beyond, perhaps words spoken here, that they actually believe there is not a military solution, and a couple of other questions, have any of you seen the evidence to support the stories that are going around that Turkey is settling Syrian Arab refugees in homes vacated by Kurds in Afrin, and finally have there been any discussions and perhaps Mr. de Mistura you hinted to this, have there been any discussions about a new mechanism at the UN that could allow the UN to get to around the Russian Veto the next time we need to do something like checking chemical weapons attack?
 
SdeM: You must have noticed that after the retreat of the Security Council in Sweden there was a press release and that made reference to a mechanism under the Secretary-General’s supervision, that is not so standard, because it is quite exceptional, but opportunity for the Secretary-General to do so.  That would relate not only to ascertaining the origin of the chemical attacks but also the accountability in that specific case.  But I have to say all that has just been indicated and discussions are still ongoing, and therefore there is not a clear answer where we are on that at this stage.