On Sept. 10 and 11, deputy foreign ministers from the Astana trio (Russia, Iran and Turkey) met in Geneva to consult with the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. The discussions helped achieve a breakthrough on the issue of the Syrian Constitutional Committee — one of the most critical items on the agenda of political resolution and peacemaking in Syria. The diplomats managed to agree upon the lists of committee members from the government and the opposition and to design a plan to create a third list composed of representatives of Syrian civil society. The lists are supposed to include 150 people altogether.
Alexander Lavrentiev, Putin’s special envoy for Syria who led the Russian delegation at the consultations, said the government and opposition lists will have to be approved by all sides after the civil society list is discussed further. Lavrentiev said this still was a “fragile mechanism” and one cannot “upset the balance,” meaning attempts to turn the civil society list into an extension of the government would be unacceptable.
According to some reports, a technical working group of diplomats from the three guarantor nations will be established to continue the discussion about the lists.
The format of the committee’s future work was also outlined during the talks in Geneva. A council of 45 members of the committee will be created specifically to design a new Syrian constitution or amend the existing one. Although the procedure for the formation of the council is still not fully clear, it is known that the body will be selected following the same principles as the committee itself, including having an equal number of representatives of the regime, opposition and civil society. This could be a compromise involving the numbers of people selected to make important decisions: De Mistura had sought to cut the number of committee members from 150 to 40-50 people. It is also unclear who will become the committee’s chairperson. Russia insists on a government official for this position, while Turkey and the opposition rebels disagree.
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