MOSCOW, December 29. /TASS/. Russia hopes that Western countries will not hinder the efforts of Moscow, Ankara and Tehran to set up a Syrian constitutional committee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday after the Russian-Turkish high-level talks.
"We are very hopeful that nobody will hamper our subsequent efforts, including our Western colleagues who have been urging the Astana troika so firmly and persistently in recent months to finish sooner the work on the constitutional committee," he said.
"It has been stated that Russia and Turkey alongside our Iranian colleagues have done everything we had promised for the formation of the constitutional committee which is due to start work in Geneva," Lavrov said. "We have achieved it through intense mediatory efforts between [Syria’s] government and opposition made by our countries’ governments."
"We will do our utmost so that this constitutional committee can start functioning as soon as possible, now with new UN Special Envoy for Syria Mr. [Geir] Pedersen, who, as far as I know, takes over in early January," the Russian foreign minister stressed.
On January 30, the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, held in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, agreed to set up a constitutional committee that will be tasked with drafting a new constitution for Syria. It is expected to include delegates from the Syrian government, the opposition and the civic society. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura spoke in favor of having no more than 50 people on the committee.
