Thank you for joining us.
If you have not yet received this information, meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee members will be covered by UNTV this week.
Accredited journalists are also welcome to cover arrivals and departures at Door 41.
We please ask you to respect masking and social distancing.
Today's meetings are ongoing.
However, the Special Envoy recognises the importance of updating the media, so he has joined us now, but we will need to limit the questions to just a few after his opening remarks.
We appreciate your understanding, Mr Peterson.
Very good to see you all pleased that we can meet like this.
As the end of her said, it is now close to two years since we had the first meeting of the Constitutional committee.
Then, as you will recall, 150 members met here in Geneva, 50 nominated by the government, 50 nominated by the opposition and 15 nominated from civil society.
The so-called middle third among the 150.
They decided to establish a drafting committee of 45 members, 15 from each category.
This drafting committee has met five times, but after the fifth meeting in January this year, we concluded that we were not making sufficient progress and that we could not continue the way we had been working.
Since then, close to 9 months, I've been negotiating between the parties, trying to be able to establish a consensus on how we are going to move forward.
And I'm very pleased to say that we have reached such a consensus.
And the two Co chairs now agree that we will not only prepare for constitutional reform, but we will prepare and start drafting for constitutional reform.
So the new thing this week is that we will actually be starting a drafting process for a constitutional reform in Syria.
I've had the pleasure this morning to meet already with the Co chair from nominated by the government and the Co chair nominated by the opposition.
And I also met with the so-called Middle Third or Civil Society 15 members.
But then also another very important meeting took place and that was that for the first time, the two cultures, the one nominated by the government and the other nominated by the opposition, was sitting down to get with me for a substantial and frank discussion on how we are to proceed with the Constitution reform and indeed in detail how we are planning for the week ahead of us.
The reason why this meeting with you will have to be a bit short is that I'm going to run immediately after this back to a meeting with the two Co chairs and discuss the details on how we're going to move forward for the rest of the week.
But my appeal of course to the 45 is that we work as we have agreed to and that we know start the drafting process of the Constitutional committee.
And of course, while we are doing that, we all realise that we are not working in the Wacom.
We understand the realities of the ground in Syria.
You know that the last since March 20, it has been a relative calm on the ground.
But when I say relative, the emphasis should be on relative because we daily have the civilians being killed and injured and my appeal has therefore been that we need to do something to correct this situation.
And as you all know, on top of this, we have an extremely difficult humanitarian and economic situation.
There are more than 13 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance and close to 90% are living below the poverty line.
So the time and I, I appeared in my last briefing to the Security Council, I appealed to the Security Council that we no need to come together and start a reprocess to the benefit of the Syrian people to move this process forward.
And as I've said many times, the Syrian Constitutional Committee is an important contribution to the political process.
But the committee in itself may not be able to solve the Syrian crisis.
So we need to come together, do serious work on the constitutional committee, but also address the other aspects of the Syrian crisis.
Nabil, please to you first.
If you could also please say what organisation you're representing, please.
What's your assessment, Mr Peterson, after the first direct meeting between both sides?
How was the atmosphere in the room?
And what's the impact on this first meeting, on this round and next round?
I, I think I would describe it as serious and frank and that they were committed to the principles that we agreed on beforehand.
So I'm hoping that we would be able to continue the meeting in in the same spirit.
But of course, you know, I will not prejudge the outcome or the week ahead of us.
We will start tomorrow and hopefully we will then be able to deliver what we, I believe that we have promised, that we have have agreed upon.
Thank you very much, Jennifer, for taking my question.
Mr Peterson is, first of all, congratulations on starting to draught the Constitution for the first time after 5 tours.
So my question is that how many more rounds do we expect for the completion of the Constitution, which will shape the future of Syria?
Very short answer to that, I don't know.
We will see how the meeting proceeds this week and then, you know, it's not only a meeting or the 45, but we will then also, you know, based on proposals from the 45, the 150 will also have to start to meet and to see how we can move this process forward.
But we have agreed that we will try to make progress and that we work continuously to provide progress.
So I'm hopefully we will be, you know, when I meet you by the end of the week, we will see if you are a bit closer to that.
Final question in the room, please go ahead.
Yep Musa al Sikonet Meyedin said the Peterson behasab Maalimna and al Wufud at the letter Alfred the letter cut them off and many at the story and fi siata dustor waqena Mina muftarad and the tum Ala arbat mevedi min azil buna cosatia Fiat El jola El tamata firm alhad El bunud were hello neca Leo bunud waddha le nikasia Fiat El jola sukran.
Yes, I do believe there are clear principles that will be discussed and that we on the agreed we have agreed that we will have them on four titles.
We will develop draught constitution text that will be discussed throughout the week.
So you know based on that understanding, I'm I'm hopeful that we will be able to make progress as I stated at the very beginning that we have in principle already agreed upon.
But as I also said, let's snow work seriously throughout this week and then when we meet again on Friday, we will be able to summarise where we are.
Again, apologies for the brevity.
As Mr Peterson noted, the meetings are ongoing.
He will update you later in the week and I will notify you of any further media media opportunities.
Also, another very important meeting took place and that was that for the first time the two Co chairs, the one nominated by the government to proceed with the Constitution reform and indeed in detail how we are planning for the week ahead of us.
But my appeal of course to the 45 is that we work as we have agreed to the last since March 20.
It has been a relative calm on the ground.
But when I say relative, the emphasis climb.
And I, I appealed in my last meeting to the Security Council.
I appealed to that also address the other aspects of the Syrian crisis.
