Syrian authorities, opposition conform to redraft structure -envoy By Reuters

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) -The United Nations Particular Envoy for Syria stated on Sunday the federal government and opposition co-chairs of the Syrian Constitutional Committee had agreed to draft a brand new structure.

The drafting committee, comprising 45 representatives of Syria’s authorities, opposition and civil society, has a mandate to attract up a brand new primary legislation resulting in U.N.-supervised elections.

Particular Envoy Geir Pedersen stated its Syrian co-chairs, who he met collectively for the primary time forward of week-long talks, had agreed to “put together and begin drafting constitutional reform.”

The talks, the sixth spherical in two years and the primary since January for the drafting committee, will focus on “clear ideas”, he informed reporters in Geneva, with out elaborating.

Hadi Al-Bahra, the co-chair of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, stated its opposition delegation was searching for reforms together with equal rights for all Syrian residents.

“As a result of we do not have separation of energy within the present structure, it created an imbalance which was utilised within the unsuitable methods,” he informed a separate information briefing on Sunday night time.

Either side would put ahead proposed texts on points together with sovereignty and rule of legislation, he stated.

Syrian authorities delegates to the talks didn’t converse to the media.

Syria’s decade-old conflict spiralled out of an rebellion in opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

After help from ally Russia, Assad has recovered most of Syria, however important areas stay exterior his management: Turkish forces are deployed in a lot of the north and northwest and U.S. forces are stationed within the Kurdish-controlled east and northeast.

In January Pedersen, a veteran Norwegian diplomat, stated Assad’s representatives had rejected proposals by the Syrian opposition in addition to the envoy’s personal concepts for transferring the constitutional course of ahead.

“Since then… I’ve been …making an attempt to have the ability to set up a consensus on how we’re going to transfer ahead. And I’m more than happy to say that we’ve reached such a consensus,” he stated on Sunday.

Western diplomats say Russia prodded Damascus in latest weeks to point out flexibility within the talks, and Pedersen has made two journeys to Moscow in latest months.

“The Syrian Constitutional Committee is a vital contribution to the political course of however the committee in itself won’t be able to resolve the political disaster,” he stated.