Following a meeting with the government and opposition co-chairs of the Syrian Constitutional Committee who have agreed to start the process for constitutional reform, United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen informed on Sunday that the Committee’s Small Body will meet in Geneva on October 18 to begin the process.
Pedersen described as “good” the meeting with Constitutional Committee’s co-chairs Ahmad Kuzbari (from the Syrian government) and Hadi al-Bahra (from the opposition) as well as with 15 Committee members from civil society.
The Constitutional Committee’s Small Body consists of 45 members (15 nominated by the Syrian government, 15 by the opposition and 15 from civil society) while the Committee has 150 delegates: 50 from the government, 50 from the opposition and 50 from civil society.
He noted that discussions were serious and frank with all the participants demonstrating commitment to the agreed principles of joint work and expressed hope they’ll continue the meeting in the same spirit.
The Special Envoy said that the sixth round of the Small Body’s session will last for a week and is expected to discuss constitutional principles as well as the draft constitution after the fifth round of consultations in January yielded no results, after which the UN envoy has been negotiating between the parties on a way forward.
The UN strongly supports the efforts towards a political solution owned and led by Syria to end more than a decade of war that took the life of over 350,000 people and left 13 million in need of humanitarian aid.
In Pedersen words, the Syrian Constitutional Committee formed in 2019 is an important contribution to the political process, but will not be able to solve the Syrian crisis by itself so they also need to address the other aspects of the Syrian crisis.
Be the first to comment