Syria
UN special envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen during a press conference in Geneva on October 17, 2021. Photo: screengrab/UN video
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A United Nations-led effort to draft a constitution for war-torn Syria will resume in Geneva on Monday, eight months after they left off and two years after the process started.
UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen on Sunday told reporters he had a good meeting that morning with the Syrian government and opposition representatives. They had a “substantial and frank discussion on how we are to proceed with the constitutional reform,” and they are ready to begin actually drafting constitutional reforms.
Negotiations began two years ago, bringing together Syrian regime, opposition representatives, and civil society actors to find a political solution to Syria’s civil conflict, but they made little progress. At the end of the fifth round of talks in January, Pedersen said he was disappointed with the lack of momentum. Each side accused the other of hindering progress. Nasr al-Hariri, president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, told Daily Sabah at the time that “The regime has not taken any serious step toward the political solution at all." Head of the regime delegation Ahmad al-Kizbari said the other parties lack unity and rejected his proposals.
Pedersen spent the next eight months in meetings with the different parties to get the process back on track.
Speaking on Sunday, Pedersen appealed for all sides to work together, noting that civilians are killed and injured every day in Syria, more than 13 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance, and close to 90 percent live below the poverty line. “My appeal has therefore been that we need to do something to correct the situation,” he said.
UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen on Sunday told reporters he had a good meeting that morning with the Syrian government and opposition representatives. They had a “substantial and frank discussion on how we are to proceed with the constitutional reform,” and they are ready to begin actually drafting constitutional reforms.
Negotiations began two years ago, bringing together Syrian regime, opposition representatives, and civil society actors to find a political solution to Syria’s civil conflict, but they made little progress. At the end of the fifth round of talks in January, Pedersen said he was disappointed with the lack of momentum. Each side accused the other of hindering progress. Nasr al-Hariri, president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, told Daily Sabah at the time that “The regime has not taken any serious step toward the political solution at all." Head of the regime delegation Ahmad al-Kizbari said the other parties lack unity and rejected his proposals.
Pedersen spent the next eight months in meetings with the different parties to get the process back on track.
Speaking on Sunday, Pedersen appealed for all sides to work together, noting that civilians are killed and injured every day in Syria, more than 13 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance, and close to 90 percent live below the poverty line. “My appeal has therefore been that we need to do something to correct the situation,” he said.
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