Syrian opposition will not withdraw from Constitutional Committee: opposition figure
ISTANBUL, Turkey (North Press) – On Tuesday, a Syrian opposition figure said that mass withdrawals would have taken place within the High Negotiation Committee (HNC), but it stopped after a meeting held between members of the opposition delegation and Russia’s permanent envoy to the UN Office in Geneva Gennady Gatilov.
The source, who preferred not to be named, told North Press that the HNC’s delegation will not withdraw from the Constitutional Committee.
“The decision is not in their hands, as they are still begging the Russians to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad,” he added.
He revealed to North Press that after the end of the fifth round of the Constitutional Committee’s works, “members of the Syrian opposition delegation rushed to Gatilov.”
“There were intentions for mass withdrawals from the HNC, but the matter ended and stopped after the meeting. It seems that they will transfer the issue to Astana, which is the Russian goal,” the source noted.
He pointed out that the Bashar Assad will run in the elections, and the opposition will not withdraw, and it is still clinging to the “deadly illusion.”
Human rights activists believe that the census that the Syrian government talked about is a prelude to the elections that Assad will hold.
Pro-government webpages reported, quoting the Central Bureau of Statistics of Damascus, that the population of Syria, as of January 31, reached 26,640,633 people.”
The human rights source indicated that upon reviewing the tables of the Central Bureau of Statistics, it was found that the number of deaths from 2010 to 2018 amounted to 617,268.
The aforementioned number is at least one-third of the correct number of civilians, not to mention the statistics of the military deaths, whose number exceeds 250,000, as the source stated.
According to the Bureau’s statistics, the rate of population increase is about 400,000 on average every year, meaning an increase of 6 million until 2020, “and if we add it to the population for the year 2004, which is 17,920,844, the number of the population will be 23,920,844,” he explained.
Syrian opposition figures unanimously agreed that Russia has made up its mind with regard to Assad’s nomination once again for the upcoming presidential elections, which are scheduled to be held in May 2021.