ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A senior Syrian Kurdish official said on Friday that there is “nothing new” regarding talks to draft a new Syrian constitution. Bedran Chiya Kurd, a top advisor in the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), said that until international powers agree on a solution to the Syrian conflict, no progress on a constitution will be made. “We believe that the subject of the constitution is the same thing it used to be. There is nothing new,” Kurd told Rudaw. “As long as there is no international agreement between the powerful countries there will be no progress in neither the Syrian constitution subject nor a political solution.” Days before the United Nations’ General Assembly session take place on September 24, the subject of the formation of a committee to amend or renew the current Syrian constitution - which has been in place since 2012 - has been a key topic of meetings on Syria. The latest development was a meeting between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Secretary-General of the UN Antonio Guterres in New York. The two talked about forming a committee to work on the Syrian constitution, according to Turkish state media. "After this meeting, we can say when we will announce the constitutional committee," Cavusoglu told reporters. Guterres said on Monday that the relevant authorities have an agreement on the composition of a committee to draft a new constitution. He added that UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen “is doing the final work with the parties in relation to the terms of reference, and we hope that this will be very soon concluded,” according to the Associated Press (AP). Pedersen is expected to arrive in Damascus on Monday. The committee to work on the Syrian constitution consists of 150 Syrians - 50 appointed by the UN, 50 by the Syrian regime and 50 by the opposition. Later on, the 150 members will be reduced to 50. There are only seven Kurds on the list: five appointed by the UN and two from the Kurdish National Congress (ENKS) as part of the opposition list. The low number of Kurds on the list has concerned Kurdish residents of northeast Syria, which Kurds call Rojava. The three guarantors of the committee - Russia, Turkey and Iran - said at the Ankara Summit on the Syrian issue on Monday that Syria requires a political solution, and added that the constitutional committee is completed as part of the solution. Ridwan Sido is a Kurdish legal expert in Rojava. He told Rudaw that the new constitution should “clearly” indicate the rights of minorities to prevent misinterpretation. “The constitutional should be a national one and clearly guarantee the rights of the ethnic and religious groups because if the rights are not mentioned clearly the powerful will interpret it as they desire,” he said. He added that the rights of these groups should not be determined by their number in the committee. “Numbers do not matter,” Sido said. Kurds have historically been denied cultural and political rights by Syrian President Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez, for decades. Many Kurds still do not have Syrian citizenship. Some Kurds in the country do not have faith in the talks over the constitution. Gharib Sadun said that Kurds are the “most oppressed” group in Syria. “The rights of all ethnic and religious groups, typically Kurds, have to be guaranteed because they have been the most oppressed in Syria throughout history,” he told Rudaw, calling on Kurds to “unite” to face challenges ahead. Shaha Abdulrahmanm, another Syrian Kurd, told Rudaw that she does not have faith in a 150-member committee where there are only few Kurds in, suggesting “at least 30 members from Kurds.”
