Damascus Hampered Talks After First Constitutional Committee Session's Success - Cavusoglu

Damascus Hampered Talks After First Constitutional Committee Session's Success - Cavusoglu

Though the first round of the Syrian Constitutional Committee's work in Geneva went better than expected, Damascus hampered further discussions, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday at a press conference during the Mediterranean Dialogues forum, MED 2019, currently being held in the Italian capital city of Rome

ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2019) Though the first round of the Syrian Constitutional Committee's work in Geneva went better than expected, Damascus hampered further discussions, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday at a press conference during the Mediterranean Dialogues forum, MED 2019, currently being held in the Italian capital city of Rome.

The second round of talks failed due to disagreements between the committee members and a walk-out by the government's delegation before the session's start.

"If we can convince the regime in Damascus, maybe some of its supporters as well, that the best solution, the only viable solution is the political solution, I think we can resolve the problem. The first round of the constitution committee meeting went better than expectations, but regime blocked, unfortunately, the second round of talks with their unacceptable preconditions," the minister said.

He added that by blocking the discussion, the government demonstrated that it did not believe in the political solution to the conflict.

"When you look at Idlib, they have been increasing their aggression and they continued the bombardments indiscriminately, thousands of civilians have been killed and already tens of thousands of people have been displaced. Do they care about that? No, as they did not care in Aleppo, Homs or elsewhere, so the only solution is a political solution. But it is not that simple, meanwhile, the territorial integrity of the country is also important," Cavusoglu stressed.

The 150-member Syrian Constitutional Committee, which unites three delegations equally representing the government, the opposition and the civil society, held its opening session in Geneva on October 30. While a smaller drafting body of 45 members is expected to work on constitutional initiatives for holding a general election, the larger body will be responsible for adopting these initiatives. The committee is tasked with developing a national constitution.