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The long-awaited agreement was reached in the talks between the two parties authorized by the United Nations in Switzerland.
Beirut, Lebanon- The Syrian government and opposition groups have agreed to begin drafting new constitutional provisions during the UN authorization negotiations in Geneva this week.
The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Gail Pedersen, said at a brief press conference on Sunday: “The two co-chairs now agree that we not only have to prepare for constitutional reforms, but we will also prepare and begin drafting constitutional reforms.”
The drafting committee consisted of 45 members from the Syrian government, opposition and civil society. They have not met since last January.
“We came to the conclusion that we have not made enough progress and we cannot continue the way we have been working,” Pedersen said. “Since then, for nearly nine months, I have been negotiating between the parties, trying to reach a consensus on how we will move forward.”
The delegation arrived in Geneva and had preliminary discussions with Pedersen, and then a series of talks during the week that started on Monday morning.
The new constitution?
In January 2018, at the Sochi Syria Peace Conference hosted by Russia, an agreement was reached to establish a 150-member committee to draft a new constitution. Until September 2019, the Syrian government, political opposition and civil society Both represent.
The task of a smaller committee of 45 people in the same proportion is to negotiate and draft new constitutional provisions.
The Syrian war, which killed approximately 500,000 people in the past 10 years, began with the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in 2011. Later it became a complex battlefield involving foreign troops, local militias and foreign fighters.
Pedersen said that Syria continues to face complex crises and called on the international community to resolve “other aspects” of the situation.
“We have civilians killed and injured every day,” Pedersen said. “There are more than 13 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance, and nearly 90% of them live below the poverty line.”
Syrian President Bashar Arad was re-elected for the fourth time in May, accounting for 95.1% of the government-held area. Western countries and opposition parties claim that the election is not free and fair.
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