UN envoy, Syria report progress in talks on post-war constitution

The United Nations and the Syrian Foreign Ministry report progress in talks on a constitutional committee that could pave the way for a political solution to the country’s eight-year conflict.

“I believe we have made a very solid progress and we are very close to have agreement on establishing the constitutional committee,” the UN Syria envoy, Geir Pedersen, told reporters after meeting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem on Wednesday.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry also said in a statement that great progress had been made in the talks.

Damascus also reiterated that the constitutional committee should be a purely Syrian affair to be decided by the Syrian people alone without any foreign interference.

Writing a new constitution for a post-war Syria is part of a potential political solution to end the eight-year crisis in the Arab country. To that end, an agreement was made in the Russian town of Sochi last year for the formation of a UN-backed Constitutional Committee composed of 50 members from the incumbent Damascus government, 50 opposition members, and another 50 independent figures chosen by the world body.

In February, Pedersen said in Geneva that he saw a constitutional committee as “the potential door-opener for the political process.”