The opposition side of the Syrian Constitutional Committee insists that government representatives should agree with holding monthly meetings, with the next session scheduled for September, Hadi Bahra, a co-chair of the Constitutional Committee from the opposition, told Sputnik in an interview
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2020) The opposition side of the Syrian Constitutional Committee insists that government representatives should agree with holding monthly meetings, with the next session scheduled for September, Hadi Bahra, a co-chair of the Constitutional Committee from the opposition, told Sputnik in an interview.
The new session of the Syrian Constitutional Committee will take place in Geneva on Monday after a nine-month break. The Small Body of 45 members will meet for the first time since November last year after a long delay caused not only by the coronavirus pandemic but also by difficulties of the two sides - government and the opposition - to agree on the meeting's agenda. However, the two co-chairs have now come to an agreement on the topics to be covered, according to UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen.
"When we reached an agreement to establish the Constitutional Committee, and during the first session of its meetings at the end of October and the early November of last year, we requested that the committee would hold its meetings monthly in sessions and each session would last for two weeks, then for the next two weeks each party would work separately on internal discussions among its members to prepare for the next joint session. Unfortunately the other side [government] had refused our proposal, and insisted on holding working sessions not longer than five continuous working days per month," Bahra said.
"I hope that they will change their method and engage in real constitutional discussions, and agree on a specific dates and schedule for the upcoming periodic meetings of the committee, to be held monthly, for two weeks joint working sessions," he continued.
Asked about the outcome that his delegation would like to see as the result of the new meeting, Bahra mentioned as one of the points an agreement "on the dates of the next working sessions for the next four months, and the agenda of the next working session to be held during September 2020."
The decision to form a body of 150 Syrians with equal representation for the government, opposition and civil society and tasked with amending and rewriting the nation's constitution was made back in January 2018, during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress organized by Russia in Sochi. However, the committee did not hold its first session until October 30, 2019.
The constitutional committee managed to have two sessions before the end of 2019. The first was deemed successful, as participants managed to agree on the rules of conduct and hear each others' views during initial statements. However, the second meeting, which was held at the end of November in a narrower format of 45 members, exposed long-standing differences between the sides of the conflict. The government delegation insisted on discussing terrorism issues, as it did during the Geneva talks in previous years, while the opposition side asserted the committee was created specifically for constitutional matters and proposed to discuss terrorism outside of the body. As a result, no meaningful sessions took place.
