Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad issued a decree on Tuesday setting May 7 as the date for parliamentary elections, Syrian official news agency SANA reported.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad issued a decree on Tuesday setting May 7 as the date for parliamentary elections, Syrian official news agency SANA reported.

This comes as part of the country’s new constitution which was put to a referendum on the 26th of February and was put into effect on the 27th of the same month.

The announcement also comes as peace envoy Kofi Annan said he was “awaiting a response from the Syrian president on concrete proposals which he had submitted to him in two rounds of talks in Damascus at the weekend.”

“I am expecting to hear from Syrian authorities today since I left some concrete proposals for them to consider," the UN-Arab League envoy told reporters in Ankara.