Syrian Constitutional Committee

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A reminder that the Constitutional Committee is meeting off site this week, so media materials of arrivals and convenience will be provided daily by Eunice.

The Special Envoy and the Co Chairs have usually opted to separately update the media at the conclusion of the week on Friday.

I will confirm this and provide times for you later in the week.

The Special Envoy joins us now and has time for a few remarks, a few questions following his remarks.

Thank you, Jennifer, and thank you, as Jennifer said, for for joining us.

Let me start by emphasising in the obvious and that is that Syria remains one of the gravest crises in the world and that there is a clear need for progress towards a political solution.

I'm pleased that the Syrian LED Syrian armed UN facilitated small body of the Constitutional Committee is meeting for the 7th session this week.

As you will recall, the Constitutional Committee consists of the large body, 150 persons, 50 from the government, 50 from the opposition and 50 from civil society.

The small body is then represented by 15 members nominated by the government, 15 members nominated by the opposition and 15 members of the civil society group, what we call the middle 3rd.

As I said, they have met 7 times and it's no more than or close to 2 1/2 years since we had the first meeting.

I will not prejudge the outcome of the decision, but as Jennifer said, I will try to provide you with an update of the work when the week concludes.

I was pleased to meet jointly with the two Co chairs this morning with the Co chairs nominated by the government and the Co chair nominated by the opposition SNC.

In that meeting we agreed also that we should meet later in the day with civil society delegation and I just left that meeting after we had a good meeting together with the coaches and with the 15 representatives of the middle 3rd.

And in the meeting with the two coaches we went through the agenda for the week.

We agreed on which 4 principles or titles that shall be discussed during the week and I will mention those 4 principles to you so that you have an idea of that.

It's what the 1st is basics of governance, the second is state identity, the third is state symbols, and the 4th is structure and functions of public authorities.

And we will spend one day on each principle.

And I think Java, you made sure that we have the correct Arabic translation.

Yes, very good.

As you may or may not recall, during the last session in October, the two Co chairs noted that the committee needed to improve the work of the last day of the session.

They said that they wanted to have a better mechanism when it comes to revisions of proposed proposed constitution text and there is no an agreement with the two Co chairs on how this should be done.

And I'm looking forward to see them on Friday.

Hope this will be put into practise as you.

Let me just remind you what is the mandate of the constitutional committee?

It's to prepare and draught for popular approval a constitutional reform, and as the mandate or the terms of references that may be through an amendment of the current Constitution or draught a new constitution.

I have consistently said that the committee should work in a way that builds trust and confidence.

And during this session, I hope to see the Constitution Committee work with a sense of seriousness and purpose and determination to make progress that the situation demands.

Thank you so much.

If there are any questions, could you please raise your hand online?

Robin from AFP.

Robin, your question please.

Yes, thank you.

I just wanted to ask, do you see any sort of signs of optimism of, of positive outcomes from from this week's meeting?

I know that sometimes you've been frustrated previous meetings, but yeah, do you see signs of, of optimism, a bit more optimism this time?

Thank you.

Listen, let me be careful by stating whether there are grounds for optimism or not.

I think if we do, you know, if if the three delegations do what they have said they will do, I I hope that we can see some some steady, steady progress.

But you know, I learned that through the six previous rounds of talks that seeing you on Sunday, I should not prejudge the outcome of the discussion.

But I should emphasise that I had good meetings with the two Co chairs in preparation for this meeting.

And I've had a good meeting with all the 15 members of the Middle 3rd and you know, hopefully, Anne, as to what I would call the businesslike meeting we had with the two Co chairs earlier today.

Hopefully that will make it possible for us to make progress through this week.

Thank you.

Isabel, Yeah, your question, please.

Yes, good afternoon.

Thank you very much.

I would like last meeting as you mentioned was in October and now is March, 5 months later.

And I, I, I, I wonder if we can assume that there have been many difficulties to, to get together the delegations.

And I would like you to explain as much as you can, what has been these difficulties to to take so long to to get this, this meeting.

Again.

Thank you.

Yeah, the, the reason for that is, is clear it, it has been, you know, what we agreed in October was that we needed to agree on a mechanism for how to improve the work on the last day of the constitutional committee.

And that has taken a little bit of time.

I have been travelling to Damascus to meet with the government and the government nominated Co chair and I've been travelling to meet with the opposition and the SNC and these things takes a bit of time.

But in the end we now have an understanding for how we are going to proceed also on the last day that is on Friday.

So that's the reason for why the work has been delayed.

Final question to Musa.

Musa, please.

Good afternoon, Jennifer, and thank you very much.

It's really good to see you yet again.

Mr Parul, 2 brief questions.

Sorry, just wait a second.

Are.

We.

Going to.

See the members the.

15 members.

Of the.

Opposition present here, particularly the representative of the Moscow before in in order to determine the this round of talk and the next talks.

This means that you have no reasons you.

Have no.

Factors that enable you to to determine and hold his rounds to my.

Knowledge you don't.

Like to have the same results as in the previous failed rounds.

You cannot accept.

The same failure for the.

Next rounds.

So what are the reasons are the international factors?

And also.

Factors from the opposition and from Syria that will push you to hold this.

Round and the next round.

The talks, thank you.

Just to confirm, I believe your question was asking about some difficulties in convening the session and the members that would be present during this seventh session.

Yeah.

I'm frankly, I'm not sure I got the whole question, but let me just say that the reason why we are meeting now is, of course, that the Syrian parties themselves wanted to have the meeting, agreed to have a meeting, and that they have managed to come to an understanding that we agreed on, that we needed to solve during the last round of talks here in Geneva in October, as I said to the previous speaker.

So, you know, we will then hopefully when I meet you on Friday, we will be able to see whether we have made progress or not.

But as I said, let me not prejudge the work that Syrians themselves will be doing this week.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us.

And again, I'll update you on the Times on Friday regarding Mr Peterson's remarks and any availability of the Co chairs.

Thank you very much.