Syria’s permanent envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said on Friday that the Syrian government has spared no effort, since the beginning of the crisis, to find a political settlement to the crisis in the country.

“The Syrian government, in continuation of that approach and in light of its keenness on halting the bloodshed of the Syrians and restoring security and stability to the country, has officially announced its acceptance to the cessation of fighting actions on the basis of continuing the military efforts to combat terrorism against the Islamic State (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations affiliated to them or to al-Qaeda in accordance with the Russian-US joint declaration,” al-Jaafari said in a statement following the UN Security Council’s adoption of Resolution No. 2268 on the cessation of the fighting actions in Syria.

He added that the Syrian government considers the content of this declaration as an important step towards the political settlement and stresses readiness to contribute to applying the cessation of the fighting actions.

Al-Jaafari noted that the delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic has taken part in the latest Geneva talks with good intention and full seriousness in order to reach a political settlement to the crisis in Syria.

“The Syrian government is ready to actively participate in any sincere effort that aims at reaching this political settlement through which only the Syrian people determine the future of their country via a Syrian-led dialogue among the Syrians themselves and without any foreign intervention in a way that guarantees Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” al-Jaafari said, affirming that these points are included in the second preliminary paragraph of the Resolution 2268 adopted by the Security Council.

He added that the Syrians are invited to work on consolidating the national reconciliations and mobilizing efforts to eliminate terrorism and start the reconstruction process as well as to build Syria and preserve its sovereignty and its independent decision.

Responding to allegations of US envoy to the Security Council that there is no existence for “Jabhat al-Nusra” in Daraya town in Damascus countryside, al-Jaafari said that this is categorically wrong as Jabhat al-Nusra is present in Daraya, pointing out to a new list that includes names of hundreds of terrorists who were killed in Syria in 2015, most of them belong to Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS and some of them were killed in Daraya.