China’s New Envoy to Visit Tehran, Moscow, Damascus over Syria Crisis

China appointed Xie Xiaoyan, a former ambassador to Iran, as its special envoy for Syria last month, and he is in Geneva participating in peace talks, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing on Tuesday, the official website of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

After the peace talks are over in Geneva, she said, he will head to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia for bilateral talks with the countries’ senior officials.

The Chinese spokeswoman provided no further details about the timing of the envoy’s trip.

Xie is going to "have a deep exchange of views with relevant parties on pushing for a political solution to the Syria crisis", Hua added.

Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with Takfiri terrorists, including Daesh, currently controlling parts of it, mostly in the east.

The Syrian conflict has killed at least 260,000 people, according to the UN, and more than half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22.4 million has been inteally displaced or fled abroad.