Switzerland: Syrian govt and opposition Constitutional Commission candidates agreed in Geneva

A technical commission will be created to speed up the process of approving candidates for the Syrian Constitutional Commission, stated the Russian President's special representative for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev in Geneva on Tuesday. Speaking to the journalists at the Russian mission in Geneva, Alexander Lavrentyev announced that representatives of the three guarantor states Russia, Turkey and Iran, during the meeting with the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Tuesday "agreed in principal" on the two lists of candidates to the Syrian constitutional committee - one from the government and the other from the opposition. Russian diplomats added that the proposed technical group of experts would study candidates from the civil society list, noting that the third list was considered a "quite sensitive" issue and that "hasty moves" that could break the forming balance should not be made. Alexander Lavrentyev expressed his hope that representatives of the three guarantor states could convene again in Geneva within a month after all the remaining questions were discussed and prepared on an expert level. Earlier on Tuesday, the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura and representatives of the three guarantor states Russia, Turkey and Iran held a quadrilateral session at the Palais des Nations, the UN Geneva office, to discuss the formation of the Syrian Constitutional Commission and the situation in Idlib. The guarantor states handed over to the United Nations a list comprising Names of 150 candidates, representatives from the Syrian government, opposition, and civil society. On Friday, de Mistura will meet with officials from Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UK, US, EU and Arab league. ______________________________ SOT, Alexander Lavrentyev, Special Envoy of the Russian President for Syria (Russian): "We are moving on and we have made some progress. We have agreed in principal on the first two lists [of candidates to the Syrian constitutional committee] - one from the government and the other one from the opposition. Of course these two lists will require final approval by the representatives of the three guarantor states and Mr. Staffan de Mistura, after the final third list from the so-called civil society has been agreed on." SOT, Alexander Lavrentyev, Special Envoy of the Russian President for Syria (Russian): "We have started to study in detail the list from the civil society. We still have certain questions on this list, as we consider that issue to be quite sensitive. We should not make any hasty moves, that could break the forming balance. The mechanism itself is very vulnerable and it's very important not spoil the whole process." SOT, Alexander Lavrentyev, Special Envoy of the Russian President for Syria (Russian): "We need to speed up the process a bit, and for that purpose we have decided to create a technical group of experts, who will study all these questions and agree on certain names [of candidates from the civil society list] that would be acceptable for both the government and opposition." ______________________________ Subscribe to our channel! rupt.ly/subscribe Video ID: 20180911-049 Video on Demand: http://www.ruptly.tv Contact: [email protected] Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ruptly Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Ruptly