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Syria’s Negotiations Committee suggests depriving new citizens of voting rights — source

Proposals by Syria’s High Negotiations Committee reportedly envision that persons who got Syrian citizenship after 2011 will be deprived of voting rights at the upcoming elections

GENEVA, April 20. /TASS/. Proposals by Syria’s High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to the United Nations chief’s special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, envision that persons who got Syrian citizenship after 2011 will be deprived of voting rights at the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, a source at the talks told TASS Wednesday.

"One of the documents stipulates that the voting rights will not be received by those who gained citizenship of Syria after 2011," the source said.

He said that in line with the HNC’s idea, this is done to exclude from participation in parliamentary and presidential elections, which are to be held after achievement of political settlement, Shiites who arrived in Syria from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan and received citizenship over the past five years.

According to the HNC, the source explained, the Syrian government deliberately settled them across the country to ensure electoral support for it.

Earlier, the Russian Federation’s Permanent Representative to the UN Office and other international organizations in Geneva Alexey Borodavkin said while commenting to TASS on the HNC’s decision to suspend participation in the talks that it testified to the fact that extremists were dominating the delegation.