The Constitutional Committee for Syria is just buying some time and will not solve the crisis in the country because the problem is not the constitution, former Syrian diplomat Bassam Barabandi told Sputnik.
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th October, 2018) The Constitutional Committee for Syria is just buying some time and will not solve the crisis in the country because the problem is not the constitution, former Syrian diplomat Bassam Barabandi told Sputnik.
"The Constitutional Committee is just wasting time and buying time. They will not change anything, even if we have best constitution ever," Barabandi said. "[T]he problem in Syria is not the constitution, the problem with Syria is the regime. The people ran away not because they didn't like their constitution, but because they were under the threat of being killed."
Last week, the Small Group on Syria set October 31 as deadline for UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura to report on the progress on convening a committee to draft a new Syrian constitution. De Mistura said that the Constitutional Committee for Syria could very possibly be launched in October.
Barabandi said if Syria's fundamental problems are not solved, even if President Bashar Assad loses power after holding elections in Syria, the constitution should not be an issue to spend time on.
"Who will take power from him? Who will take his [Assad's] inner circle out of the system? There is no mechanism. If Assad stays in power, what will the refugees do? ... I think this is just buying time to do something in the future but it is not something to build on," Barabandi said.
Establishing the Constitutional Committee was agreed upon in January during the Sochi Congress on Syria. The committee is expected to consist of three groups representing the Syrian government; opposition and women; and experts and leaders of various tribes living in Syria.
According to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, the concerned parties have been divided over the composition of the third group.
Barabandi said he believes the Constitutional Committee is violating the sequence of events enumerated in UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
"In Security Council [Resolution] 2254, they put a sequence of events that ends by forming the Constitution Committee, not starting with," he said.
The international community has taken a number of steps to settle the Syrian crisis, including organizing negotiations in Astana, Geneva and Sochi.
