MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th August, 2020) The Syrian Constitutional Committee (CC) would move with planned meetings in a remote format after four members were diagnosed with COVID-19, Hadi Al Bahra, co-chair from the opposition delegation, said in a statement.
The second such summit was scheduled to begin in Geneva on Monday after all participants received results for mandatory COVID-19 tests. UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen late on Monday announced that three test results came back positive. It is now known that four prospective participants are infected and will be isolating in their hotel rooms for periods up to 10 days.
"During this time, we will continue our work with the representatives of SNC [Syrian National Council] in the CC through the virtual communication tools," Al Bahra said in a statement, issued on Monday.
The decision to form a body of 150 Syrians with equal representation for 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, it was not until October 30, 2019, that the committee could hold its first session.
The committee managed to have two sessions before the end of 2019. While first was deemed successful, as participants managed to agree on the rules of conduct and hear each others' views during initial statements, the second one, held in late November in a narrower format of 45 members, exposed long-standing differences between the sides. The government delegation insisted on discussing terrorism issues, as it did during the Geneva talks in previous years, while the opposition 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.
