UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen has called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition” in Syria.

Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, he said negotiations in Switzerland would focus on the implementation of a UN resolution calling for a Syrian-led political process.

Resolution 2254, adopted in 2015, called for the creation of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with UN-supervised elections.

Mr Pedersen said the need for an orderly political transition “has never been more urgent” and said the situation in Syria was evolving by the minute.

His call comes as Syrian insurgents reportedly reached the suburbs of Damascus in a rapid offensive that has seen them take control of some of Syria’s biggest cities.

It was the first time opposition forces reached the outskirts of the Syrian capital since 2018, when Syrian troops retook the region adjacent to the capital after a year-long siege.

The move comes after the Syrian army withdrew from much of southern Syria on Saturday, leaving more parts of the country, including two provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters.

The insurgents’ rapid advances represent a stunning reversal of fortune for Syrian President Bashar Assad, who appears to be largely left to his own devices, with former allies preoccupied with other conflicts.

Its main international backer, Russia, is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to bolster its forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel.

Iran, meanwhile, has seen its proxies in the region degraded by Israeli airstrikes.

Amid these dramatic developments, Syrian state media denied rumors that flooded social media that Mr. Assad had left the country, saying he was carrying out his duties in the capital, Damascus.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war monitor, said insurgents are now active in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya .

He added that on Saturday, opposition fighters were also marching from eastern Syria towards the Damascus suburb of Harasta.

An insurgent commander, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the messaging app Telegram that opposition forces had begun carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus.

He added that the insurgents were heading from southern Syria towards Damascus.

The Syrian army, meanwhile, sent large numbers of reinforcements to defend the key city of Homs, Syria’s third largest city, as insurgents approached its outskirts.

The shock offensive began on November 27, led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, in which gunmen captured the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. of Syria, and the central city of Hama, the fourth largest city in the country.

The group traces its origins to Al-Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations.

HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview from Syria on Thursday that the goal of the offensive was to overthrow Assad’s government.

In gas-rich Qatar, the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey were due to meet to discuss the situation in Syria. Turkey is a major backer of rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.