Pressure On De Mistura Over Syrian Constitutional Committee Counterproductive - Lavrov

UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th September, 2018) Pressure on UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura in regard to requiring hasty creation of the Syrian constitutional committee is counterproductive, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday.

"The small group on Syria, which recently met - four Western and three Arab countries �adopted a statement that requires immediate commencement of the work of the constitutional committee. We know that this means that they are trying to force Staffan de Mistura to go out and declare 'here is the committee, by decree of myself I create it, and it will have such a composition.' That would be a big mistake," Lavrov told a press conference at the UN General Assembly.

He added that this pressure was aimed at eliminating everything that was achieved within the framework of the Astana process and at trying to "again lead to the situation when it is not the Syrians who decide in which country they will live, but to impose a scheme agreed by external forces on this long-suffering country."