Russia links the announcement of lists of the Syrian Constitutional Committee with Pederson

ARK News: Russia has linked the announcement of lists of the Syrian Constitutional Committee with the UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pederson, who took part in the 12th round of Astana talks in the Kazakh capital on Friday.

The three sponsoring countries of the talks (Russia, Turkey, and Iran) in the past days have not reached an agreement on forming the committee, which is counting on a new constitution for Syria.

The Russian special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said that Pederson is authorized to put in place the working mechanism of the constitutional committee, who will announce the lists of the Constitutional Committee, expressing his hope to announce that list by the time of the next meeting of Astana, in July.

In February, Pederson said he hoped to invite the constitutional committee to meet in Geneva "as soon as possible."

He added that he had ideas on how to build trust between the two sides, which had participated in nine previous rounds and has yielded almost nothing, referring to the talks of "Astana" that sponsored by the guarantors of the Syrian file Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

The three countries (guarantor) decided in their final statement of Astana 12, on Friday, the holding of the next round of "Astana" in Geneva, and stressed their full readiness to support the efforts of the UN envoy to Syria, Mr. Pederson, including effective dialogue with the Syrian parties.
According to the closing statement that countries conducted tripartite discussions with Pederson for the launch of the Constitutional Committee as soon as possible, in accordance with the decision of the "national dialogue" conference of Sochi.

The Russian official confirmed that the presence of Pederson a round of negotiations has benefited politically significantly, considering that his mission is to facilitate the Syrian settlement led by Syria and not lead the settlement of the United Nations.

802