Pedersen in Damascus to discuss Constitutional Committee’s meetings
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Sunday, the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, arrives in the Syrian capital, Damascus to discuss the negotiations of the Constitutional Committee after he held political and military talks in Moscow.
Pedersen’s visit to Damascus comes after expressing his disappointment with the failure of the fifth round of the Constitutional Committee negotiations in Geneva, which was held late in January.
Just before heading to Syria, Pedersen met with a number of Russian officials in Moscow to urge them to put more pressure on the Syrian government in order to set a date for the sixth round of the Constitutional Committee negotiations.
Pedersen hopes to persuade Damascus to complete the work of the Constitutional Committee, and to define new mechanisms that will enable the start to discuss the articles of the constitution during the next round.
After the end of the 15th round of the Astana talks on February 17, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, and his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, made a phone call.
Pro-government media outlets reported that Lavrov confirmed his country’s support for the works of the Constitutional Committees in Geneva without any external interference.
On February 17, the works of the 15th round of Astana talks started in the Russian city of Sochi in the presence of representatives of the guarantor countries of Turkey, Russia and Iran.
Also, Pederson, delegations of Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan had participated as observers.
At the end of the meeting, the delegations agreed on holding the 16th round of Astana talks in the middle of 2021 in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan.
Late in January, the fifth round of the Constitutional Committee’s meeting concluded without achieving any progress.